Table of Contents
目录
1. Plato The Republic
1. 柏拉图 《理想国》
Thrasymachus and Glaucon
色拉西马库斯和格劳孔
Rulers, Auxiliaries and Workers
统治者、辅助者和工人
The just state and the just individual
公正的国家与公正的个体
The three parts of the soul
灵魂的三个部分
Criticisms of The Republic
《理想国》的批评
2. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics
2. 亚里士多德《尼科马科伦理学》
Eudaimonia: a happy life
幸福：一种快乐的生活
The function of a human being
人类的功能
Akrasia: weakness of will
无能为力：意志的软弱
Criticisms of the Nicomachean Ethics
对《尼科马科伦理学》的批评
3. Boethius The Consolation of Philosophy
3. 博伊修斯 《哲学的安慰》
Criticism of The Consolation of Philosophy
对《哲学的安慰》的批评
4. Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince
4. 尼科洛·马基雅维利 《君主论》
Cesare Borgia versus Agathocles
切萨雷·博尔贾对抗阿卡托克利斯
Interpretations of The Prince
《君主论》的解读
Criticisms of The Prince
对《君主论》的批评
5. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne Essays
5. 米歇尔·艾克姆·德·蒙田 论文
Criticism of Montaigne’s Essays
对蒙田《随笔》的批评
6. René Descartes Meditations
6. 笛卡尔的沉思
The evidence of the senses
感官的证据
Criticisms of Meditations
对《沉思录》的批评
7. Thomas Hobbes Leviathan
7. 托马斯·霍布斯《利维坦》
Criticisms of Leviathan
对《利维坦》的批评
8. Baruch de Spinoza Ethics
8. 巴鲁赫·斯宾诺莎 伦理学
Freedom and human bondage
自由与人类束缚
9. John Locke An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
9. 约翰·洛克 《人类理解论》
Primary and secondary qualities
主要和次要属性
Criticisms of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
对《人类理解论》的批评
10. John Locke Second Treatise of Government
10. 约翰·洛克《政府二论》
First and Second Treatises
第一和第二论著
The state of nature and laws of nature
自然状态和自然法则
Criticisms of Second Treatise of Government
对《政府第二论》的批评
11. David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
11. 大卫·休谟 《人类理解研究》
Criticisms of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
对《人类理解研究》的批评
12. David Hume Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
12. 大卫·休谟 自然宗教对话
Criticisms of the Design Argument
设计论的批评
13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract
13. 让-雅克·卢梭 社会契约
Three types of government
三种类型的政府
Criticisms of The Social Contract
对《社会契约论》的批评
14. Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason
14. 伊曼努尔·康德 《纯粹理性批判》
Appearances and the thing-in-itself
表象与物自身
The transcendental deduction
超越演绎
Criticism of the Critique of Pure Reason
对《纯粹理性批判》的批评
15. Immanuel Kant Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
15. 伊曼努尔·康德 《道德形而上学的基础》
The categorical imperative
定言命令
Kant, Aristotle and Mill
康德、亚里士多德和穆尔
Criticisms of The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
《道德形而上学基础》的批评
16. Thomas Paine Rights of Man
16. 托马斯·潘恩 《人权论》
Criticisms of Rights of Man
对《人权宣言》的批评
17. Arthur Schopenhauer The World as Will and Idea
17. 亚瑟·叔本华 《作为意志和表象的世界》
Criticisms of The World as Will and Idea
对《作为意志和表象的世界》的批评
18. John Stuart Mill On Liberty
18. 约翰·斯图亚特·密尔 《论自由》
Criticisms of On Liberty
《论自由》的批评
19. John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism
19. 约翰·斯图亚特·密尔 功利主义
Bentham’s utilitarianism
边沁的功利主义
Mill on higher and lower pleasures
高尚与低俗的快乐
The ‘proof’ of utilitarianism
功利主义的“证明”
Criticisms of Utilitarianism
对功利主义的批评
20. Søren Kierkegaard Either/Or
20. 索伦·基尔凯郭尔 《非此即彼》
The aesthetic approach to life
生活的审美方式
The ethical approach to life
生活的伦理方法
Readings of Either/Or
《Either/Or》的阅读
Criticisms of Either/Or
《非此即彼》的批评
21. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The German Ideology, Part One
21. 卡尔·马克思和弗里德里希·恩格斯 《德意志意识形态》，第一部分
Criticisms of The German Ideology
对《德国意识形态》的批评
22. Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil
22. 弗里德里希·尼采 《超越善恶》
On the prejudices of philosophers
关于哲学家的偏见
Criticisms of Beyond Good and Evil
《超越善恶》的批评
23. Friedrich Nietzsche On the Genealogy of Morality
23. 弗里德里希·尼采 《道德的谱系》
First essay: ‘good and evil’ and ‘good and bad’
第一篇论文：‘善与恶’和‘好与坏’
Second essay: conscience
第二篇文章：良知
Third essay: asceticism
第三篇论文：禁欲主义
Criticisms of On the Genealogy of Morality
对《道德谱系》 的批评
24. Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy
24. 伯特兰·罗素 《哲学问题》
Knowledge by acquaintance and by description
通过熟悉和描述获得的知识
Criticisms of The Problems of Philosophy
对《哲学问题》的批评
25. A. J. Ayer Language, Truth and Logic
25. A. J. Ayer 语言、真理与逻辑
The Verification Principle
验证原则
Strong and weak senses of ‘verifiability’
“可验证性”的强和弱含义
Criticisms of Language, Truth and Logic
语言、真理与逻辑的批评
26. R.G. Collingwood The Principles of Art
26. R.G. Collingwood 艺术的原则
Who was R.G. Collingwood?
R.G. Collingwood 是谁？
The technical theory of art
艺术的技术理论
But doesn’t art involve craft?
但艺术难道不涉及工艺吗？
Criticisms of Collingwood’s theory of art
对科林伍德艺术理论的批评
27. Jean-Paul Sartre Being and Nothingness
27. 让-保罗·萨特 《存在与虚无》
Phenomenological approach
现象学方法
Existential psychoanalysis
存在主义心理分析
Criticisms of Being and Nothingness
对《存在与虚无》的批评
28. Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialism and Humanism
28. 让-保罗·萨特 《存在主义与人道主义》
What is existentialism?
什么是存在主义？
Criticisms of Existentialism and Humanism
存在主义和人本主义的批评
29. Karl Popper The Open Society and Its Enemies
29. 卡尔·波普尔 《开放社会及其敌人》
What did Popper mean by an open society?
波普所说的开放社会是什么意思？
Plato’s totalitarian tendencies
柏拉图的极权主义倾向
Criticism of The Open Society and Its Enemies
对《开放社会及其敌人》的批评
30. Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations
30. 路德维希·维特根斯坦 《哲学研究》
Relation to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
与《逻辑哲学论》的关系
Family resemblance terms
家庭相似性术语
The Private Language Argument
私人语言论
Criticisms of Philosophical Investigations
对《哲学研究》的批评
31. Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
31. 托马斯·库恩 《科学革命的结构》
What Kuhn was arguing against
库恩所反对的观点
Normal science and revolutions
常规科学与革命
Paradigm shifts transform what can be observed
范式转变改变了可观察的事物
Criticisms of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
对《科学革命的结构》的批评
32. John Rawls A Theory of Justice
32. 约翰·罗尔斯 《正义论》
The fair equality of opportunity principle and the difference principle
公平机会原则和差异原则
Criticisms of A Theory of Justice
对《正义理论》的批评
Index (including key concepts)
索引（包括关键概念）
PHILOSOPHY
哲学
THE CLASSICS
经典著作
Praise for the first edition:
对第一版的赞誉：
‘The challenge is to convey to the modern reader the perennial freshness of ideas which might otherwise be clouded by historical scholarship. Nigel Warburton rises to the challenge with admirable skill.’
“挑战在于向现代读者传达那些可能被历史学术所掩盖的思想的持久新鲜感。奈杰尔·沃伯顿以令人钦佩的技巧迎接了这一挑战。”
Roger Scruton, The Times
罗杰·斯克鲁顿，《泰晤士报》
Now in its fourth edition, Philosophy: The Classics is a brisk and invigorating tour through the great books of western philosophy. In his exemplary clear style, Nigel Warburton introduces and assesses thirty-two philosophical classics from Plato’s Republic to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. The fourth edition includes new material on:
现在是第四版，《哲学：经典》是对西方哲学伟大著作的快速而振奋人心的巡礼。在他清晰的风格中，奈杰尔·沃伯顿介绍并评估了从柏拉图的《理想国》到约翰·罗尔斯的《正义论》这三十二部哲学经典。第四版包括关于以下内容的新材料：
Montaigne The Essays
蒙田 论集
Thomas Paine The Rights of Man
托马斯·佩恩 《人权》
R.G. Collingwood The Principles of Art
R.G. Collingwood 艺术原理
Karl Popper The Open Society and Its Enemies
卡尔·波普尔 《开放社会及其敌人》
Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
托马斯·库恩 《科学革命的结构》
With a glossary and suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, this is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in philosophy.
每章末尾附有术语表和进一步阅读的建议，这是任何对哲学感兴趣的人的理想起点。
Nigel Warburton is a freelance philosopher, podcaster and writer. He is the author of many books including Philosophy: The Basics (5th edition), Thinking from A to Z (3rd edition) and The Basics of Essay Writing. With David Edmonds, he makes the popular philosophy podcast Philosophy Bites.
奈杰尔·沃伯顿是一位自由职业的哲学家、播客主持人和作家。他是多本书籍的作者，包括《哲学：基础》（第 5 版）、《从 A 到 Z 的思考》（第 3 版）和《论文写作基础》。与大卫·埃德蒙兹一起，他制作了受欢迎的哲学播客《哲学小品》。
Praise for the First Edition:
对第一版的赞誉：
‘Nigel Warburton gives a characteristically lucid account of twenty philosophical classics. Philosophy: The Classics is sure to be of wide interest and appeal.’
‘奈杰尔·沃伯顿对二十部哲学经典进行了典型的清晰阐述。《哲学：经典》必定会引起广泛的兴趣和吸引力。’
Andrew Pyle, University of Bristol
安德鲁·派尔，布里斯托大学
‘This is a lucid, engaging and eminently readable book …’
“这是一本清晰、引人入胜且极易阅读的书……”
Michael Clark, University of Nottingham
迈克尔·克拉克，诺丁汉大学
‘Philosophy: The Classics is a clear-minded and fluent introduction to philosophy …’
《哲学：经典著作》是对哲学的清晰而流畅的介绍……
Stephen Priest, University of Edinburgh
斯蒂芬·普里斯特，爱丁堡大学
‘This book will be a very useful addition to every philosophy student’s library …’
“这本书将是每位哲学学生图书馆中非常有用的补充……”
E. J. Lowe, University of Durham
E. J. Lowe，达勒姆大学
Other books by the same author
同一作者的其他书籍
Philosophy: The Basics
哲学：基础知识
Fifth Edition (2012)
第五版（2012）
Thinking from A to Z
从 A 想到 Z
Third Edition (2007)
第三版（2007）
Philosophy: Basic Readings
哲学：基础阅读
Second Edition (2005)
第二版（2005）
Freedom: An Introduction with Readings
自由：导论与阅读材料
(2001)
The Art Question
艺术问题
(2003)
Philosophy: The Essential Study Guide
哲学：必备学习指南
(2005)
The Basics of Essay Writing
论文写作基础
(2006)
with D. Matravers and J. Pike
与 D. Matravers 和 J. Pike
Reading Political Philosophy: Machiavelli to Mill
阅读政治哲学：从马基雅维利到密尔
(2001)
PHILOSOPHY
哲学
THE CLASSICS
经典著作
Fourth edition
第四版
Nigel Warburton
奈杰尔·沃伯顿
First edition published 1998
第一版出版于 1998 年
Reprinted 1999, 2000
再版于 1999 年，2000 年
Second edition published 2001
第二版出版于 2001 年
Reprinted 2002, 2004, 2005
重印于 2002 年、2004 年、2005 年
Third edition first published 2006
第三版首次出版于 2006 年
Reprinted 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
重印于 2007、2008、2009、2010 年
Fourth edition published 2014
第四版出版于 2014 年
by Routledge
由 Routledge 出版
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
牛津郡阿宾顿米尔顿公园公园广场 2 号 OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
并由 Routledge 出版
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
711 第三大道，纽约，NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Routledge 是泰勒与弗朗西斯集团的一个品牌，属于 Informa 业务
© 1998, 2001, 2006, 2014 Nigel Warburton
The right of Nigel Warburton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
奈杰尔·沃伯顿根据 1988 年《版权、设计和专利法》第 77 和 78 条主张其作为本作品作者的权利。
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
版权所有。未经出版商书面许可，本书的任何部分不得以任何形式或通过任何已知或今后发明的电子、机械或其他手段进行重印、复制或利用，包括复印和录音，或在任何信息存储或检索系统中使用。
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
商标声明：产品或公司名称可能是商标或注册商标，仅用于识别和说明，且无意侵犯。
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
英国图书馆出版数据编目
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
本书的目录记录可从英国图书馆获取
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
国会图书馆出版数据目录
Warburton, Nigel, 1962–
沃伯顿，奈杰尔，1962–
Philosophy: the classics/Nigel Warburton. – Fourth edition.
哲学：经典著作/奈杰尔·沃伯顿。– 第四版。
pages cm
页面厘米
Includes bibliographical references and index.
包括参考文献和索引。
1. Philosophy. I. Title.
1. 哲学。I. 标题。
B72.W37 2014
100–dc23
2013028411
ISBN: 978-0-415-53467-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-53466-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-84920-1 (ebk)
For Anna
给安娜
CONTENTS
内容
I am grateful to everyone who commented on parts or all of this book in its various editions, including Tony Bruce, Michael Clark, Caroline Dawnay, Jonathan Hourigan, Muna Khogali, Stephen Law, E.J. Lowe, Pauline Marsh, Derek Matravers, Anna Motz, Tom Stoneham, Charles Styles, Stephanie Warburton and Terence Wilkerson. This edition is substantially different from earlier ones, and includes five new chapters as well as revisions throughout. The chapter on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism and Humanism draws on my article ‘A Student’s Guide to Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism and Humanism’ which originally appeared in the magazine Philosophy Now.
我感谢所有在本书各个版本中对部分或全部内容发表评论的人，包括 Tony Bruce、Michael Clark、Caroline Dawnay、Jonathan Hourigan、Muna Khogali、Stephen Law、E.J. Lowe、Pauline Marsh、Derek Matravers、Anna Motz、Tom Stoneham、Charles Styles、Stephanie Warburton 和 Terence Wilkerson。本版与早期版本有很大不同，包含五个新章节以及全书的修订。关于让-保罗·萨特的存在主义与人道主义的章节参考了我在杂志《哲学现在》中发表的文章《学生指南：让-保罗·萨特的存在主义与人道主义》。
Nigel Warburton
奈杰尔·沃伯顿
Oxford 2013
牛津 2013
@philosophybites
This book consists of thirty-two chapters, each focused on a single great philosophical book. The point is to introduce each book, bringing out its most important themes. The books dealt with here are worth reading today because they engage with philosophical problems that are still worth discussing, and because they continue to offer insights. Apart from that, many of them hold their own as great works of literature.
这本书由三十二章组成，每一章都集中于一本伟大的哲学书籍。目的是介绍每本书，突出其最重要的主题。这里讨论的书籍今天仍然值得阅读，因为它们涉及的哲学问题仍然值得讨论，并且它们继续提供见解。除此之外，许多书籍本身也作为伟大的文学作品而独树一帜。
Ideally, reading this book should be a spur to your reading (or rereading) the books it treats. But not everyone has the time or the energy to do that. At least I hope this will guide you to the books among the thirty-two that you are likely to find most rewarding, and offer you some suggestions about how you might read them critically. I have tried to avoid recommending books which are unnecessarily obscure. This has led me to omit some acknowledged masterpieces, such as Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit and Philosophy of Right and Heidegger’s Being and Time, for which I make no apology. At the end of each chapter I have given guidelines for further reading.
理想情况下，阅读这本书应该激励你去阅读（或重读）它所涉及的书籍。但并不是每个人都有时间或精力去做这件事。至少我希望这本书能引导你找到三十二本中最值得阅读的书，并为你提供一些关于如何批判性阅读它们的建议。我尽量避免推荐那些不必要晦涩的书籍。这使我省略了一些公认的杰作，例如黑格尔的《精神现象学》和《法哲学原理》以及海德格尔的《存在与时间》，对此我不感到抱歉。在每一章的末尾，我提供了进一步阅读的指南。
My choice of books is in some ways controversial, more for what I have left out than for what I have included, I suspect. What I have done is focused on books that I believe repay study today and which are amenable to the sort of treatment possible in three or four thousand words. This is a personal top thirty-two; other philosophers, though their choices would certainly overlap with mine, would come up with a different top thirty-two.
我选择的书在某种程度上是有争议的，我怀疑这更多是因为我遗漏的内容而不是我所包含的内容。我所做的是专注于我认为今天值得研究的书籍，并且这些书籍适合在三四千字的篇幅内进行处理。这是我个人的前三十二名；其他哲学家虽然他们的选择肯定会与我的重叠，但他们会提出不同的前三十二名。
I have included brief chronologies, but haven’t found space for any detailed historical background. My main aim is to introduce books rather than movements in the history of ideas. This doesn’t mean that I am advocating a completely ahistorical reading of these texts. However, I do believe that the best way to approach them is, in the first instance, by getting an overview of their major themes and emphases. Those who want more contextual information can find it in the recommendations for further reading.
我已经包含了简要的时间表，但没有找到空间提供详细的历史背景。我的主要目的是介绍书籍，而不是思想史上的运动。这并不意味着我提倡对这些文本进行完全的非历史性解读。然而，我确实相信，接近它们的最佳方式是首先了解它们的主要主题和重点。那些想要更多背景信息的人可以在进一步阅读的推荐中找到。
Don’t be afraid to dip into chapters out of order. I have written each chapter to stand on its own without presupposing any knowledge of those which have gone before.
不要害怕按顺序跳过章节。我写的每一章都是独立的，不需要预先了解之前的内容。
Further Reading
进一步阅读
My two books, Philosophy: The Basics (London: Routledge, 5th edn, 2012) and Thinking from A to Z (London: Routledge, 3rd edn, 2007) complement this one. The first is a topic-based introduction to the central areas of philosophy; the second an alphabetically arranged introduction to critical thinking, the techniques of argument that are central to philosophical method. I have also edited a collection of readings, Philosophy: Basic Readings (London: Routledge, 2nd edn, 2004) and an introduction to study skills in philosophy: Philosophy: The Essential Study Guide (London: Routledge, 2004).
我的两本书，《哲学：基础》（伦敦：劳特利奇，第五版，2012 年）和《从 A 到 Z 的思考》（伦敦：劳特利奇，第三版，2007 年）与这本书相辅相成。第一本是对哲学核心领域的主题导论；第二本是对批判性思维的按字母顺序排列的介绍，论证技巧是哲学方法的核心。我还编辑了一本阅读文集，《哲学：基础阅读》（伦敦：劳特利奇，第二版，2004 年）以及一本关于哲学学习技能的导论：《哲学：必备学习指南》（伦敦：劳特利奇，2004 年）。
Other general books on philosophy which you might find useful include:
其他您可能会觉得有用的哲学通用书籍包括：
John Cottingham (ed.) Western Philosophy: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
约翰·科廷汉（编）《西方哲学：选集》（牛津：布莱克威尔，1996 年）。
Edward Craig (ed.) The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2005).
爱德华·克雷格（编）《短版劳特利奇哲学百科全书》（伦敦：劳特利奇，2005 年）。
David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton (eds) Philosophy Bites Back (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
大卫·埃德蒙兹和奈杰尔·沃伯顿（编）《哲学反击》（牛津：牛津大学出版社，2012 年）。
Anthony Flew A Dictionary of Philosophy (London: Pan, 1979).
安东尼·弗鲁 《哲学词典》（伦敦：潘出版社，1979 年）。
Ted Honderich (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
泰德·霍德里奇（编）《牛津哲学指南》（牛津：牛津大学出版社，1995 年）。
Anthony Kenny A New History of Western Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
安东尼·肯尼 《西方哲学的新历史》（牛津：牛津大学出版社，2012 年）。
Bryan Magee The Great Philosophers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
布莱恩·梅吉 《伟大的哲学家》（牛津：牛津大学出版社，1988 年）。
Alan Ryan On Politics: A History of Political Thought from Herodotus to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton, 2013).
艾伦·瑞安《政治论：从希罗多德到现在的政治思想史》（纽约：W.W. 诺顿，2013 年）。
Roger Scruton A Short History of Modern Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2nd edn, 1995).
罗杰·斯克鲁顿 《现代哲学简史》（伦敦：劳特利奇，第二版，1995 年）。
J. O. Urmson and Jonathan Rée The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers (London: Routledge, new edn, 1989).
J. O. Urmson 和 Jonathan Rée 《西方哲学与哲学家的简明百科全书》（伦敦：劳特利奇，新版，1989 年）。
Nigel Warburton A Little History of Philosophy (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).
奈杰尔·沃伯顿 《哲学简史》（伦敦和新哈芬：耶鲁大学出版社，2012 年）。
Mary Warnock (ed.) Women Philosophers (London: Dent, Everyman, 1995).
玛丽·沃诺克（编）《女性哲学家》（伦敦：登特，人人出版社，1995 年）。
Recommended Websites
推荐的网站
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a reliable source:
斯坦福哲学百科全书是一个可靠的来源：
Philosophy Bites: interviews (audio) with contemporary philosophers, many of them on the ideas of past philosophers:
哲学咬文：与当代哲学家的访谈（音频），许多关于过去哲学家的思想：
http://www.philosophybites.com
Early Modern Texts: paraphrases of many key philosophical texts designed to help readers negotiate the sometimes difficult language of the originals:
早期现代文本：许多关键哲学文本的释义，旨在帮助读者理解原文中有时困难的语言：
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/
In Our Time: an archive of the BBC Radio 4 programmes in this series that were devoted to philosophy:
在我们的时代：一个关于这一系列专注于哲学的 BBC Radio 4 节目的档案：
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/in-our-time/archive/philosophy/all
Plato The Republic
柏拉图 《理想国》
Imagine a cave. Prisoners are chained facing its far wall. They’ve been kept there all their lives and their heads are held fixed so that they can’t see anything except the wall of the cave. Behind them there is a fire and between the fire and their backs a road. Along the road various people walk casting their shadows on the cave wall; some of them carry models of animals which also cast shadows. The prisoners inside the cave only ever see shadows. They believe the shadows are the real things because they don’t know any better. But in fact they never see real people.
想象一个洞穴。囚犯们被锁链锁住，面朝远处的墙壁。他们一生都被关在这里，头被固定住，无法看到洞穴以外的任何东西。它们身后有一堆火，火与他们的背之间有一条路。沿着这条路，各种人走过，投射出他们的影子在洞穴的墙上；其中一些人还携带着动物模型，这些模型也投射出影子。洞穴里的囚犯们只看到影子。他们相信影子是真实的东西，因为他们不知道更好的情况。但实际上，他们从未见过真实的人。
Then one day one of the prisoners is released and allowed to look towards the fire. At first he is completely dazzled by the flames, but gradually he starts to discern the world around him. Then he is taken out of the cave into the full light of the sun, which again dazzles him. He slowly begins to realise the poverty of his former life: he had always been satisfied with the world of shadows when behind him lay the brightly lit real world in all its richness. Now as his eyes acclimatise to the daylight he sees what his fellow prisoners have missed and feels sorry for them. Eventually he becomes so used to the light that he can even look directly at the sun.
然后有一天，其中一个囚犯被释放，允许他朝火焰看去。起初，他被火焰完全眩晕，但渐渐地他开始辨认周围的世界。然后他被带出洞穴，进入阳光的明亮光线中，这又让他感到眩晕。他慢慢开始意识到自己过去生活的贫乏：他一直满足于阴影的世界，而在他身后则是光明照耀的真实世界，充满了丰富的色彩。现在，当他的眼睛适应了日光，他看到了他的同伴囚犯所错过的东西，并为他们感到遗憾。最终，他变得如此习惯于光线，以至于他甚至可以直接看着太阳。
Then he is taken back to his seat in the cave. His eyes are no longer used to this shadowy existence. He can no longer make the fine discriminations between shadows that his fellow prisoners find easy. From their point of view his eyesight has been ruined by his journey out of the cave. He has seen the real world; they remain content with the world of superficial appearances and wouldn’t leave the cave even if they could.
然后他被带回洞穴中的座位。他的眼睛已经不再适应这种阴暗的存在。他无法再像其他囚犯那样轻松地区分阴影。从他们的角度来看，他的视力因为离开洞穴而受到了损害。他已经看到了真实的世界；而他们仍然满足于表面现象的世界，即使有机会也不会离开洞穴。
This parable of the prisoners in the cave occurs halfway through Plato’s masterpiece, The Republic. It provides a memorable image of his theory of Forms, his account of the nature of reality. According to him the majority of humankind are, like the prisoners, content with a world of mere appearance. Only philosophers make the journey out of the cave and learn to experience things as they really are; only they can have genuine knowledge. The world of everyday perception is constantly changing and imperfect. But the world of the Forms to which philosophers have access is unchanging and perfect. It can’t be perceived with the five senses: it is only by means of thought that anyone can experience the Forms.
这个关于洞穴中囚徒的寓言出现在柏拉图的杰作《理想国》的中间部分。它提供了他关于形式理论的生动形象，以及他对现实本质的描述。根据他的说法，大多数人类就像囚徒一样，满足于仅仅是表象的世界。只有哲学家才能走出洞穴，学习以事物真实的样子去体验；只有他们才能拥有真正的知识。日常感知的世界是不断变化和不完美的。但哲学家所能接触的形式世界是永恒不变和完美的。它无法通过五感感知：只有通过思考，任何人才能体验到形式。
The life and death of his mentor, Socrates, was the main influence on Plato’s philosophy. Socrates was a charismatic figure who attracted a crowd of wealthy young Athenians around him. He did not leave any writing but exerted his influence through his conversations in the marketplace. He claimed not to have any doctrine to teach, but rather, through a series of pointed questions, would demonstrate how little those he talked to really knew about such things as the nature of piety, justice, or morality. While Plato was still a young man, Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of the city and failing to believe in its gods. Socrates drank hemlock, the conventional method of execution for Athenian citizens.
他的导师苏格拉底的生死对柏拉图的哲学产生了主要影响。苏格拉底是一个富有魅力的人物，吸引了一群富有的年轻雅典人围绕在他身边。他没有留下任何著作，而是通过在市场上的对话施加影响。他声称自己没有任何教义可教，而是通过一系列尖锐的问题，展示了与他交谈的人对虔诚、正义或道德等事物的无知。当柏拉图还年轻时，苏格拉底因腐化城市青年和不信奉其神明而被判处死刑。苏格拉底饮下了毒芹，这是雅典公民的传统处决方式。
Plato gave Socrates a kind of afterlife in his dialogues. Yet the character called Socrates in Plato’s work probably differs considerably in his views from the real Socrates. Plato wrote as if he were recording conversations which had actually occurred; but by the time he came to write The Republic, Plato’s Socrates had become a mouthpiece for Plato’s own views.
柏拉图在他的对话中给了苏格拉底一种来世。然而，柏拉图作品中名为苏格拉底的角色在观点上可能与真实的苏格拉底有很大不同。柏拉图写作时仿佛在记录实际发生的对话；但到他写《理想国》时，柏拉图的苏格拉底已成为他自己观点的代言人。
The Republic provides a mixture of Plato’s two characteristic approaches to writing. In Book One, there is a conversation between Socrates and some friends which could have been the first scene in a play: we are told something of the setting and the reactions of the different characters. But in later sections, although Plato continues to write in dialogue form, the thrust of exposition is in Socrates’ voice, and the supporting cast simply agree with his pronouncements.
《理想国》结合了柏拉图两种典型的写作方式。在第一卷中，苏格拉底和一些朋友之间的对话可以看作是一出戏剧的第一场景：我们了解到一些背景和不同角色的反应。但在后面的部分，尽管柏拉图继续以对话的形式写作，阐述的重点却是以苏格拉底的声音进行的，配角们只是简单地同意他的论断。
Thrasymachus and Glaucon
色拉西马库斯和格劳孔
The main body of The Republic is a response to the challenges set by Thrasymachus and Glaucon. Thrasymachus maintains that what goes by the name of ‘justice’ is simply whatever happens to serve the interests of the strongest. Power is all that makes something right. Justice is simply a matter of obeying the self-serving rules set up by the strongest. At the level of individual behaviour, injustice pays much better than justice: those who help themselves to more than their fair share are happier than those who are just.
《理想国》的主体是对特拉西马库斯和格劳孔所提出挑战的回应。特拉西马库斯认为，所谓的“正义”不过是服务于最强者利益的事物。权力是使某事正确的唯一标准。正义仅仅是遵循最强者设定的自利规则。在个人行为层面上，不公正的行为比正义更有利：那些占有超过自己应得份额的人比那些公正的人更快乐。
Glaucon takes this further, suggesting that those who behave justly only do so as a form of self-preservation. Anyone who, like the mythical character Gyges, found a ring that made them invisible would lose any incentive for behaving justly since they could guarantee getting away with any crime, seduction or deception. He imagines a situation in which a just man is thought by everyone else to be unjust. He is tortured and executed: his life seems to have nothing to be said in its favour. Compare this with the life of a cunning wicked man who manages to seem just while being completely unscrupulous whenever he can get away with it. He leads a happy life, it seems, and is considered a model of respectability even though beneath his disguise he is thoroughly evil. This suggests that justice doesn’t pay, or at least that it doesn’t always pay. It also suggests that if Socrates wants to defend the just life he will have to show that the situation described isn’t the full story. In fact in the rest of the book Socrates attempts to do precisely that; he seeks to demonstrate that justice does pay, and that, besides, it is intrinsically worthwhile. It is good both for its consequences and in itself.
格劳孔进一步提出，行为公正的人只是出于自我保护的形式。任何像神话人物吉吉斯一样找到一个让他们隐形的戒指的人，都将失去公正行为的任何动机，因为他们可以保证逃脱任何罪行、诱惑或欺骗。他想象一个情境，在这个情境中，一个公正的人被其他人认为是不公正的。他被折磨并被处决：他的生活似乎没有任何值得称道的地方。与此相比，一个狡猾的恶人则设法在完全不择手段的情况下看起来公正。他似乎过着幸福的生活，并被视为尊重的典范，尽管在他的伪装下，他是彻底邪恶的。这表明，正义没有回报，或者至少并不总是有回报。这也表明，如果苏格拉底想要捍卫公正的生活，他必须证明所描述的情况并不是全部事实。实际上，在书的其余部分，苏格拉底试图正是这样做；他试图证明正义是有回报的，而且，除此之外，它本身就是有价值的。 它既因其后果而好，也因其本身而好。
Although The Republic is usually thought of as a work of political philosophy, and despite the fact that most of it is focused on the question of how Plato’s utopian state should be run, the discussion of the state is only introduced as a way of getting clearer about individual morality. Plato’s main concern is to answer the question ‘What is justice and is it worth pursuing?’ ‘Justice’ is a slightly strange word to use here, but it is the best translation of the Greek word dikaiosunē: it means, roughly, doing the right thing. Plato’s main concern is the question of what is the best way for a human being to live. His reason for looking at the organisation of the state at all is his belief that the state is equivalent to the individual writ large; that the best way of proceeding is to study justice in the state and then transfer our findings to the individual. Just as someone who is short-sighted finds it easier to read large letters so it is easier to look at justice in the state than on the smaller scale of an individual life.
尽管《理想国》通常被视为政治哲学的著作，并且尽管其大部分内容集中在如何管理柏拉图的乌托邦国家的问题上，但对国家的讨论只是为了更清楚地理解个人道德。柏拉图的主要关切是回答“什么是正义，追求正义是否值得？”这个问题。“正义”在这里是一个稍显奇怪的词，但它是希腊词 dikaiosunē的最佳翻译：大致上，它意味着做正确的事情。柏拉图主要关心的是人类生活的最佳方式。他之所以关注国家的组织，是因为他相信国家相当于个体的放大；最佳的做法是研究国家中的正义，然后将我们的发现转移到个体上。就像近视的人更容易阅读大字一样，研究国家中的正义比在个体生活的较小范围内更容易。
Human beings cannot easily live alone. There are many advantages in co-operation and communal living. As soon as people group together it makes sense to divide work according to different people’s skills: it is better for a tool maker to make tools all the year round and a farmer to farm than that the farmer stop his work to make new tools when the old ones wear out. The tool maker will be more skilled at tool making than the farmer. The same is true of all other professions which involve skill: skill requires practice.
人类不容易独自生活。合作和共同生活有许多好处。人们一旦聚在一起，就有必要根据不同人的技能来分工：工具制造者全年制作工具，农民耕作，这比农民在旧工具磨损时停下工作去制作新工具要好。工具制造者在工具制作方面会比农民更熟练。所有其他需要技能的职业也是如此：技能需要练习。
As the state grows and work becomes more specialised, the need for a full-time army to defend the state from attack becomes apparent. The Guardians of the state must, according to Plato, be strong and courageous, like good guard dogs. But they must also have a philosophical temperament. A significant part of The Republic is taken up with Plato’s training schedule for the Guardians.
随着国家的发展和工作变得更加专业化，保护国家免受攻击的全职军队的需求变得显而易见。根据柏拉图的说法，国家的守护者必须强壮而勇敢，像好的看门狗一样。但他们也必须具备哲学的气质。《理想国》中有相当一部分内容是关于柏拉图对守护者的训练计划。
Rulers, Auxiliaries and Workers
统治者、辅助者和工人
Plato divides his class of Guardians into two: Rulers and Auxiliaries. The Rulers are those who are to have the political power and who make all the important decisions; the Auxiliaries help the Rulers and provide defence against threats from outside. A third group, the Workers, will, as their name suggests, work, providing the necessities of life for all the citizens. Plato isn’t much interested in the lives of the Workers: most of The Republic concentrates on the Guardians.
柏拉图将他的守护者阶级分为两类：统治者和辅助者。统治者是那些拥有政治权力并做出所有重要决策的人；辅助者帮助统治者并提供对外部威胁的防御。第三组是工人，顾名思义，他们将工作，为所有公民提供生活必需品。柏拉图对工人的生活并不太感兴趣：《理想国》的大部分内容集中在守护者身上。
The Rulers are chosen as those who are most likely to devote their lives to doing what they judge to be in the best interests of the society. To weed out unsuitable candidates, Plato suggests that in the course of their education potential Rulers should be given various tests to see if they are likely to be bewitched by the pursuit of their own pleasure: their reactions to temptation will be closely monitored and only those who demonstrate complete devotion to the well-being of the community will be chosen to rule. They will be very few in number.
统治者被选为那些最有可能将自己的生命奉献给他们认为对社会最有利的事情的人。为了筛选不合适的候选人，柏拉图建议在他们的教育过程中，潜在的统治者应该接受各种测试，以观察他们是否可能被追求个人快乐的欲望所迷惑：他们对诱惑的反应将被密切监控，只有那些表现出对社区福祉完全奉献的人才会被选为统治者。他们的数量将非常少。
None of the Guardians will be allowed to own personal property, and even their children will be treated in common. In fact Plato provides a radical solution to the family: he wants to abolish it and replace it with state nurseries in which children are looked after unaware of who their parents are. This is supposed to increase loyalty to the state since children brought up in this way won’t have confusing loyalties to family members.
任何守护者都不允许拥有个人财产，甚至他们的孩子也将被共同抚养。事实上，柏拉图提供了一个激进的家庭解决方案：他想要废除家庭，取而代之的是国家托儿所，在那里孩子们在不知道自己父母是谁的情况下被照顾。这应该会增强对国家的忠诚，因为以这种方式抚养的孩子不会对家庭成员产生混淆的忠诚。
Even sexual intercourse is regulated: citizens are only allowed to have sex at special festivals when they are paired off by lot – or at least, that’s what the participants are led to believe. In fact the Rulers fix the outcome of the mating lottery so that only those of good breeding stock will be allowed to procreate. Thus Plato’s republic has its own form of eugenics designed to produce strong and courageous children. At birth all children are taken away from their mothers to be reared by specially appointed officers. Children of inferior Guardians and any ‘defective’ offspring of the Workers are disposed of.
甚至性行为也受到监管：公民只能在特殊节日中进行性交，当他们通过抽签配对时——或者至少，参与者被引导相信是这样。实际上，统治者操控配对抽签的结果，以便只有那些优秀血统的人才能繁殖。因此，柏拉图的理想国有其自身形式的优生学，旨在培养强壮和勇敢的孩子。所有孩子出生后都被带离母亲，由特别指定的官员抚养。劣质监护人的孩子和任何“缺陷”工人的后代都会被处理掉。
Not all of Plato’s proposals in The Republic are as offensive as these plans for selective breeding and infanticide. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he thought that women should be given the same education as men, should be allowed to fight alongside them, and become Guardians if they showed aptitude. It is true that he still believed that men would surpass women at every activity. Even so, his proposals were radical at a time when married middle-class women were virtual prisoners in their own homes.
并不是所有柏拉图在《理想国》中提出的建议都像这些选择性繁殖和婴儿杀害的计划那样令人反感。与他的大多数同时代人不同，他认为女性应该接受与男性相同的教育，应该被允许与他们并肩作战，并在表现出才能时成为守护者。确实，他仍然相信男性在每项活动中都会超越女性。即便如此，他的提议在当时已婚中产阶级女性几乎是囚徒般被禁锢在自己家中的情况下，显得非常激进。
The success of the state depends upon its citizens’ loyalty to the land and to each other. In order to assure this loyalty Plato suggests that all classes of society be encouraged to believe a myth about their origins. The ‘magnificent myth’ or ‘noble lie’, as it is sometimes translated, is as follows. Everyone sprang from the earth fully formed: memories of upbringing and education are just a dream. In fact all citizens are siblings since they are all the children of Mother Earth. This should make them loyal both to the land (their mother) and to each other (their brothers and sisters).
国家的成功依赖于公民对土地和彼此的忠诚。为了确保这种忠诚，柏拉图建议鼓励社会各阶层相信一个关于他们起源的神话。这个“宏伟的神话”或“高尚的谎言”，有时被翻译为如下：每个人都是从大地上完全形成的：对成长和教育的记忆只是一场梦。实际上，所有公民都是兄弟姐妹，因为他们都是大地母亲的孩子。这应该使他们对土地（他们的母亲）和彼此（他们的兄弟姐妹）都保持忠诚。
The myth has another aspect. God, when he created each individual, added metal to their composition. He added gold to the Rulers; silver to the Auxiliaries; and bronze and iron to the Workers. God instructed the Rulers to observe the mixture of metals in the characters of children. If a child with bronze in his or her composition is born of gold parents, then they must harden their hearts and consign him or her to the life of a Worker; if a Worker’s child has gold or silver in him or her, then the child must be brought up as a Ruler or Auxiliary as appropriate. This myth is intended to produce not only loyalty, but contentment with your station in life. The class that you belong to is determined by factors outside your control.
这个神话还有另一个方面。上帝在创造每一个个体时，给他们的构成中添加了金属。他给统治者添加了黄金；给辅助者添加了白银；给工人添加了青铜和铁。上帝指示统治者观察孩子们性格中的金属成分。如果一个含有青铜的孩子出生于黄金父母，那么他们必须硬化心肠，把他或她送入工人的生活；如果一个工人的孩子身上有黄金或白银，那么这个孩子必须被培养成统治者或辅助者，视情况而定。这个神话旨在产生不仅是忠诚，还有对自己生活地位的满足。你所属的阶级是由你无法控制的因素决定的。
The Just State and the Just Individual
公正的国家与公正的个体
Because the ideal state he describes is perfect, Plato believes it must possess the qualities of wisdom, courage, self-discipline and justice. He takes it for granted that these are the four cardinal virtues of any perfect state. Wisdom is due to the Rulers’ knowledge, which allows them to make wise decisions for the benefit of the state; courage is demonstrated by the Auxiliaries, whose training has made them brave and fearless in defence of the state; self-discipline arises from the harmony between the three classes, with the unruly desires of the majority being held in check by the wise decisions of the Rulers; and lastly, justice is evident in the state as a result of each person taking care of his or her own business in the sense of doing what he or she is naturally fitted for. Anyone who attempts social mobility is a potential threat to the state’s stability.
因为他所描述的理想状态是完美的，柏拉图认为它必须具备智慧、勇气、自律和正义这四种品质。他理所当然地认为这四种是任何完美国家的四个基本美德。智慧源于统治者的知识，使他们能够为国家的利益做出明智的决策；勇气由辅助者表现出来，他们的训练使他们在捍卫国家时变得勇敢无畏；自律源于三个阶级之间的和谐，绝大多数人的不羁欲望受到统治者明智决策的制约；最后，正义在国家中显而易见，因为每个人都在照顾自己的事务，做自己天生适合的事情。任何试图社会流动的人都是对国家稳定的潜在威胁。
The ideal state exhibits the four cardinal virtues because of its division into three classes and because of the harmonious balance between their assigned roles. Analogously, Plato insists, each individual consists of three parts, and the qualities of wisdom, courage, self-discipline and justice all depend on the harmonious interplay between these parts of the individual.
理想的国家展现出四种基本美德，因为它分为三个阶级，并且各自角色之间保持和谐的平衡。类似地，柏拉图坚持认为，每个个体由三个部分组成，而智慧、勇气、自律和正义的品质都依赖于这些个体部分之间的和谐互动。
The Three Parts of the Soul
灵魂的三部分
The word ‘soul’ suggests something more spiritual than is appropriate: although Plato believes in the immortality of the soul, what he writes about the three parts of the soul in The Republic doesn’t turn on the soul being separable from the body, or even on its being something distinct from the body. His interest here is really in the psychology of motivation. The three parts of the soul he identifies are Reason, Spirit and Desire.
“灵魂”这个词暗示着比适当的更为精神化的东西：尽管柏拉图相信灵魂的不朽，但他在《理想国》中关于灵魂三部分的论述并不依赖于灵魂与身体的可分性，甚至也不依赖于灵魂与身体的区别。他在这里真正感兴趣的是动机的心理学。他所识别的灵魂的三部分是理性、精神和欲望。
Reason corresponds to the role of the Rulers in the ideal state. Like the Rulers, Reason can plan for the good of the whole entity: unlike the other parts of the soul, it is not self-interested. Reason has the capacity to make plans about how best to achieve certain ends; but it also involves the love of truth.
理性对应于理想国家中统治者的角色。与统治者一样，理性可以为整个实体的利益进行规划：与灵魂的其他部分不同，它并不自私。理性有能力制定最佳实现某些目标的计划；但它也涉及对真理的热爱。
Spirit is that part of the personality which provides emotional motivation for action in the form of anger, indignation and the like. When subject to the proper training Spirit is the source of bravery and courage. Spirit corresponds to the role of the Auxiliaries.
精神是个性中提供情感动机以行动的部分，表现为愤怒、愤慨等。当经过适当的训练，精神是勇气和胆量的源泉。精神对应于辅助者的角色。
Desire is the pure appetite for particular things such as food, drink or sex. Desire can persist in direct opposition to Reason. Indeed the occurrence of conflicts between what people want and what they know is best for them is evidence Plato uses to support his distinction between the three parts of the soul. Desire corresponds to the role of the Workers.
欲望是对特定事物（如食物、饮料或性）的纯粹渴望。欲望可以与理性直接对立。实际上，人们想要的与他们知道对自己最好的之间的冲突的发生，是柏拉图用来支持他对灵魂三部分区分的证据。欲望对应于工人的角色。
The four virtues of wisdom, courage, self-discipline and justice can all be found in individuals as well as in states: Plato explains these virtues in terms of the parts of the soul. Someone who is wise makes decisions based on the dominance of Reason; someone who is brave gets the motivation to act in the face of danger from Spirit, which acts as the ally of Reason; someone who has self-discipline follows the dictates of Reason, keeping Desire under control. Most importantly, someone who is just acts so that all the parts of the soul are in harmony: each part functions in its appropriate role with Reason in command. So justice in the individual is a kind of psychic harmony. This is what makes it an intrinsically valuable condition.
智慧、勇气、自律和正义这四种美德既可以在个人身上找到，也可以在国家中找到：柏拉图通过灵魂的各个部分来解释这些美德。一个明智的人根据理性的主导地位做出决策；一个勇敢的人在面对危险时从精神中获得行动的动力，精神作为理性的盟友；一个有自律的人遵循理性的指令，控制欲望。最重要的是，一个公正的人使得灵魂的所有部分和谐相处：每个部分在理性的指挥下发挥其适当的角色。因此，个体的正义是一种心理和谐。这就是它成为一种内在有价值状态的原因。
Although Plato’s pretext for discussing justice in the state is in order to illuminate questions about the individual, he is clearly also deeply concerned with the utopian republic he has created. He addresses the question of how such a political system could ever come about and concludes that the only hope is to rest power in the hands of philosophers. Plato defends this surprising suggestion with another parable. Imagine a ship whose owner is short-sighted, a bit deaf and more or less ignorant of seamanship. The crew quarrel about who should take the helm of the ship. None of them have devoted any time to the study of navigation and in fact they don’t believe it can be taught. Factions compete to take control of the ship, and when they do they help themselves to the goods on board, turning the voyage into a kind of drunken pleasure cruise. None of them realise that a navigator needs to study the weather and the position of the stars. They think of anyone who acquires the relevant skills as a useless star-gazer.
尽管柏拉图讨论国家正义的借口是为了阐明关于个体的问题，但他显然也对他所创造的乌托邦共和国深感关切。他探讨了这样一种政治体系如何可能出现的问题，并得出结论，唯一的希望是将权力交给哲学家。柏拉图用另一个寓言来捍卫这个令人惊讶的建议。想象一艘船，其船主视力短浅，有点耳聋，并且对航海知识几乎一无所知。船员们争吵着谁应该掌舵。没有人花时间学习航海，实际上他们不相信航海可以被教授。派系争相控制这艘船，当他们这样做时，他们帮助自己获取船上的货物，把航行变成一种醉酒的游乐之旅。他们都没有意识到，导航员需要研究天气和星星的位置。他们认为任何获得相关技能的人都是无用的观星者。
The state in its present form is like the ship lurching around in the hands of the unskilled crew. Only in the hands of a skilled navigator will it be kept under control: and the philosopher, despised as he might be, is the only person in possession of the knowledge required to steer the state. Plato’s theory of Forms explains why philosophers are particularly well-equipped to rule.
现阶段的国家就像在无能的船员手中摇摆不定的船只。只有在熟练的导航员手中，它才能保持控制：而哲学家，尽管可能被轻视，却是唯一掌握引导国家所需知识的人。柏拉图的形式理论解释了为什么哲学家特别适合统治。
The parable of the cave with which I began this chapter illustrates in a memorable way Plato’s picture of the human condition. Most of humanity is content with mere appearance, the equivalent of the flickering shadows on the wall of the cave. Philosophers, however, since they love truth, seek knowledge of reality: they journey out of the cave and get access to the Forms.
我在本章开头提到的洞穴寓言以一种难忘的方式展示了柏拉图对人类状况的描绘。大多数人类满足于仅仅是表象，相当于洞穴墙上的闪烁阴影。然而，哲学家们由于热爱真理，寻求对现实的知识：他们走出洞穴，接触到理念。
The theory of Forms, although put forward by the character Socrates in The Republic, is generally recognised to be Plato’s own contribution to philosophy. When people speak of Platonism they usually mean this aspect of his work. To understand what Plato meant by ‘Form’ it is easiest to consider one of his examples.
形式理论虽然是由《理想国》中的角色苏格拉底提出的，但普遍认为这是柏拉图对哲学的贡献。当人们谈论柏拉图主义时，他们通常指的是他作品的这一方面。要理解柏拉图所说的“形式”，最简单的方法是考虑他的一个例子。
Many beds exist. Some are double, some single, some four-posted, and so on. Yet there is something they share which makes them all beds. What they share is a relation to an ideal bed, the Form of the bed. This Form actually exists: it is the only real bed. All other beds are imperfect copies of the Form of the bed. They belong to the world of appearance, not of reality. Consequently we can only have genuine knowledge of the Form of the bed: any information about actual beds is opinion, not knowledge. The everyday world we inhabit is constantly changing; the world of Forms is timeless and unchanging. Philosophers, with their love of wisdom, gain access to the world of Forms, and thus the possibility of knowledge, through thought; perception restricts us to the flux of the world of appearance.
许多床存在。有些是双人床，有些是单人床，有些是四柱床，等等。然而，它们有一个共同点，使它们都成为床。它们共享的是与理想床的关系，即床的形式。这个形式实际上是存在的：它是唯一真实的床。所有其他床都是床的形式的不完美复制品。它们属于表象的世界，而不是现实的世界。因此，我们只能对床的形式拥有真正的知识：关于实际床的任何信息都是观点，而不是知识。我们所居住的日常世界不断变化；形式的世界是永恒不变的。哲学家们凭借对智慧的热爱，通过思考获得了进入形式世界的机会，从而获得知识的可能性；感知则限制我们停留在表象世界的流动中。
Though he does not spell out precisely which things in the world have a corresponding Form, Plato does maintain that there is a Form of the Good. It is the Good which is the ultimate focus of philosophers’ quest for knowledge. He uses the simile of the sun to explain this idea. The sun makes sight possible and is the source of growth; the Form of the Good allows the mind’s eye to ‘see’ and understand the nature of reality. Without the illumination provided by the Form of the Good, we are condemned to live in a twilight world of appearance and opinion; in the light of the Good we can glean knowledge of how to live.
尽管他没有明确指出世界上哪些事物有对应的形式，但柏拉图确实坚持认为存在一个善的形式。善是哲学家追求知识的最终焦点。他用太阳的比喻来解释这个观点。太阳使视觉成为可能，并且是生长的源泉；善的形式使心灵之眼能够“看见”并理解现实的本质。如果没有善的形式所提供的光照，我们就注定要生活在一个外表和意见的黄昏世界中；在善的光辉下，我们可以获得如何生活的知识。
Having shown that a just state is one in which the different classes fulfil their appropriate roles, and a just individual one in whom the different motivations are in harmony, Plato turns to some examples of injustice in the state and the individual. He considers four types of unjust state and their corresponding personality type. The four are timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. A timocracy is a state, such as Sparta, which is dominated by a drive for military honour; in an oligarchy wealth is the sign of merit; a democracy is a state which is ruled by the people as a whole; in a tyranny the ruler has absolute power.
在证明一个公正的国家是不同阶级履行各自适当角色的国家，而一个公正的个体是不同动机和谐的个体后，柏拉图转向了一些国家和个体的不公正例子。他考虑了四种不公正的国家及其对应的人格类型。这四种是：荣誉政治、寡头政治、民主和暴政。荣誉政治是一个如斯巴达那样的国家，主导力量是对军事荣誉的追求；在寡头政治中，财富是功绩的标志；民主是一个由全体人民统治的国家；在暴政中，统治者拥有绝对权力。
Again Plato exploits the alleged symmetry between the state and the individual. For instance, in his discussion of democracy he claims that state democracy ignores the principle of training to rule which he has shown to be so essential to the just state. The only prerequisite in a democratic ruler is that he professes to be the people’s friend. The corresponding democratic individual, like the democratic state, entertains a wide variety of pleasures, not distinguishing those which are based on good desires from those which have their source in evil. The result is psychic disharmony: the democratic individual does not permit Reason to rule over inappropriate desires. Idle whims dominate; injustice is inevitable.
再次，柏拉图利用了国家与个人之间所谓的对称性。例如，在他对民主的讨论中，他声称国家民主忽视了他所展示的对统治者进行训练的原则，而这一原则对公正的国家至关重要。民主统治者的唯一前提是他自称是人民的朋友。相应的民主个人，像民主国家一样，享有各种各样的快乐，不区分那些基于良好欲望的快乐与那些源于邪恶的快乐。结果是心理上的不和谐：民主个人不允许理性支配不当的欲望。闲散的幻想占据主导地位；不公正是不可避免的。
In his account of the Guardians’ education Plato argues that various kinds of poetry should be censored. Any writing which gives a false impression of gods or heroes, or which when read out loud by students will lead to an over-identification with unjust characters, is to be banned. In Book Ten of The Republic he returns to the subject of art and its place in an ideal society. He concentrates on mimetic art, that is, art which is meant to represent reality. His conclusion is that such art should have no place in his republic. There are two main reasons for this. First, it can only ever be a copy of an appearance and so tends to distance us from the world of the Forms. Second, it appeals to the irrational part of our souls and so tends to disrupt the psychic harmony necessary for justice.
在他对守护者教育的叙述中，柏拉图认为各种类型的诗歌应该受到审查。任何给人以错误印象的关于神或英雄的作品，或者在学生朗读时会导致对不公正角色的过度认同的作品，都应被禁止。在《理想国》第十卷中，他再次回到艺术及其在理想社会中的地位这一主题。他专注于模仿艺术，即旨在表现现实的艺术。他的结论是，这种艺术在他的共和国中没有立足之地。主要有两个原因。首先，它只能是外表的复制，因此往往使我们与形式的世界保持距离。其次，它吸引我们灵魂中非理性的部分，因此往往会破坏实现正义所必需的心理和谐。
To explain the first sort of criticism Plato takes the example of a painter painting a bed. God made the Form of the bed; a carpenter made a shadowy copy of that Form; an artist painted a copy of the carpenter’s copy, doing the equivalent of holding up a mirror to what was already an imperfect image of the one real bed. Consequently the artist obstructs rather than aids our knowledge of reality. The artist remains ignorant of the true nature of the bed and is content with copying the appearance of a particular bed. Plato takes poets to be doing more or less the same as the painter, and so extends his disapproval to the art of poetry.
为了说明第一种批评，柏拉图以画家画床的例子为例。上帝创造了床的形式；木匠制作了那个形式的影像；艺术家画了木匠复制品的副本，相当于对已经是不完美的真实床的影像进行反射。因此，艺术家阻碍了我们对现实的认识，而不是帮助我们。艺术家对床的真实本质一无所知，只满足于复制特定床的外观。柏拉图认为诗人所做的与画家大致相同，因此将他的不满扩展到诗歌艺术。
The work of mimetic artists is nevertheless seductive, as Plato recognises. It does not appeal to reason, but to the lower parts of the soul, an effect exacerbated by artists’ tendency to represent evil rather than good impulses. Mimetic artists can lead the unwary away from the path to knowledge. There is, then, no place for them in the republic.
模仿艺术家的作品尽管如此具有诱惑力，正如柏拉图所承认的。它并不诉诸理性，而是诉诸灵魂的低层部分，这种效果因艺术家倾向于表现邪恶而非善良冲动而加剧。模仿艺术家可能会使无防备者偏离通往知识的道路。因此，他们在理想国中没有立足之地。
Criticisms of the Republic
对《共和国》的批评
State/individual analogy
国家/个体类比
Plato’s whole project in The Republic relies on there being a strong analogy between justice in the state and justice in an individual. If the analogy is weak, then any conclusions about justice for an i ndividual derived from conclusions about the just state will be correspondingly weak. Plato treats it as obvious that his move from state to individual is a legitimate one. However, it is at least worth questioning whether or not this move is justified.
柏拉图在《理想国》中的整个项目依赖于国家的正义与个人的正义之间存在强烈的类比。如果类比较弱，那么从关于公正国家的结论推导出的关于个人正义的任何结论也将相应地较弱。柏拉图认为，从国家到个人的转变是显而易见的。然而，至少值得质疑这一转变是否是合理的。
Only Rulers can be just
只有统治者才能公正
Furthermore, Plato’s theory seems to have the consequence that only the Rulers can be just. After justice has been defined in terms of psychic harmony and each class in the republic in terms of their dominant source of motivation, it becomes clear that only those in whom Reason rules supreme will be capable of acting justly. The Rulers are the only class of people who are in this position. So it seems to follow that only the Rulers are capable of justice. Plato might not have seen this as a serious objection to his theory but rather as an illuminating consequence; for most readers today, however, it brings out the uncompromising elitism inherent in Plato’s thought.
此外，柏拉图的理论似乎导致只有统治者才能公正。在正义被定义为心理和谐，并且共和国中的每个阶级根据其主导动机来源进行分类后，显然只有理性占主导地位的人才能够公正地行事。统治者是唯一处于这种位置的人。因此，似乎可以得出结论，只有统治者才能实现正义。柏拉图可能并没有将此视为对其理论的严重反对，而是作为一种启发性的结果；然而，对于今天的大多数读者来说，这突显了柏拉图思想中固有的无情精英主义。
Equivocates about ‘justice’
对“正义”含糊其辞
When Plato tells us that justice is really a kind of mental health in which the three parts of the soul function harmoniously he seems to have discarded the ordinary sense of ‘justice’. He seems to have redefined the word arbitrarily to suit his purposes, or at the very least to have used it in two different senses. Why would anyone want to talk of ‘justice’ in this way?
当柏拉图告诉我们正义实际上是一种心理健康，其中灵魂的三个部分和谐运作时，他似乎抛弃了“正义”的普通意义。他似乎任意重新定义了这个词以适应他的目的，或者至少以两种不同的意义使用它。为什么会有人想以这种方式谈论“正义”？
Plato would no doubt respond to this criticism that his notion of justice does bring out what we ordinarily mean by justice. Plato’s just individual won’t steal or take more than his share because that would involve Reason’s yielding to lower desires. However, this seems to leave open the possibility that some people whom we might be tempted to label ‘just’ on account of their behaviour would not pass Plato’s test since their behaviour might stem from less than harmonious psychic functioning. They might simply have a desire to behave justly, but a very underdeveloped capacity to reason.
柏拉图无疑会回应这种批评，认为他的正义观确实体现了我们通常所理解的正义。柏拉图的正义个体不会偷窃或占有超过自己应得的份额，因为这将涉及理性屈服于低级欲望。然而，这似乎留下了一个可能性，即一些我们可能会因其行为而倾向于标记为“正义”的人，可能无法通过柏拉图的测试，因为他们的行为可能源于不太和谐的心理功能。他们可能只是有一种正义行为的愿望，但理性的能力却非常欠缺。
Involves deception
涉及欺骗
At several key points in his argument Plato advocates lying in order to preserve loyalty to the state and to fellow citizens. For instance, there is the so-called ‘noble lie’ of the myth of the metals; there is also the lie about the mating lottery. Many people find this unacceptable. An ideal state should not be founded on deception. Plato, however, seems unconcerned about this. His interest is in the end result and the best way to achieve it, not in moral questions about how this end result is achieved.
在他论证的几个关键点上，柏拉图主张为了维护对国家和同胞的忠诚而撒谎。例如，有所谓的“高尚的谎言”——金属的神话；还有关于配对抽签的谎言。许多人对此感到不可接受。一个理想的国家不应建立在欺骗之上。然而，柏拉图似乎对此并不在意。他关注的是最终结果和实现这一结果的最佳方式，而不是关于如何实现这一结果的道德问题。
Theory of Forms is implausible
形式理论是不可信的
Plato’s theory of Forms provides an important foundation for his arguments about the ideal republic. Yet it has little intuitive plausibility for most philosophers today. Perhaps hardest to stomach is the notion that the Forms actually exist and are the reality of which the observed world is simply a shadowy copy.
柏拉图的形式理论为他关于理想共和国的论点提供了重要基础。然而，对于今天的大多数哲学家来说，这一理论几乎没有直观的可信性。也许最难以接受的是，形式实际上存在，并且是观察世界的真实，而观察到的世界只是一个阴影般的复制品。
If we jettison the theory of Forms, then the metaphysical underpinning of many of Plato’s proposals would be removed. For instance, without the notion that philosophers are particularly good at gaining knowledge of reality, there would be no obvious justification for putting them in charge of the ideal state. Nor would there be an obvious reason for banning the mimetic arts from the state.
如果我们抛弃形式理论，那么许多柏拉图提议的形而上学基础将被移除。例如，如果没有哲学家特别擅长获得现实知识的观念，就没有明显的理由将他们置于理想国家的领导地位。也没有明显的理由禁止模仿艺术在国家中存在。
Justifies totalitarianism
为极权主义辩护
However, perhaps the most significant criticism of Plato’s Republic is that it provides a recipe for totalitarianism. With its plan for eugenics, its ‘noble lie’, its outlawing of the family and its censorship of art, the state intrudes into every area of life. Individuals in Plato’s world must be subservient to the requirements of the state and are expected to sacrifice every element of personal freedom to this end. Those of us who value individual liberty and freedom of choice find Plato’s vision a decidedly unattractive one.
然而，或许对柏拉图《理想国》最重要的批评是，它提供了一种极权主义的食谱。凭借其优生学计划、"高尚的谎言"、对家庭的禁止以及对艺术的审查，国家干预了生活的每一个领域。在柏拉图的世界中，个人必须服从国家的要求，并被期望为此牺牲每一个个人自由的元素。我们这些重视个人自由和选择自由的人发现柏拉图的愿景显得相当不吸引人。
427 | BC | Plato born into an aristocratic Athenian family. |
399 | BC | Socrates drinks hemlock. |
399 | BC | Plato writes more than twenty philosophical dialogues. |
347 | BC | Plato dies. |
Auxiliaries: Guardians who help the Rulers and provide defence from outside threats.
辅助者：帮助统治者并提供防御外部威胁的守护者。
democracy: a state ruled by the people.
民主：一个由人民统治的国家。
dikaiosunē: usually translated as ‘justice’, this has the sense of doing what is morally right.
公正：通常翻译为“正义”，这意味着做道德上正确的事情。
Forms: sometimes known as Ideas. The world of Forms is the real world of perfect entities: the world of appearance which most of us occupy most of the time consists of imperfect copies of the Forms.
形式：有时被称为理念。形式的世界是真实的完美实体的世界：我们大多数人大部分时间所处的外在世界由形式的不完美复制品组成。
Guardians: the class of citizens who protect and rule the state. They consist of Rulers and Auxiliaries.
守护者：保护和统治国家的公民阶级。他们由统治者和辅助者组成。
mimesis: imitation. This is the word Plato uses to describe what he takes to be the essence of artistic endeavour: mirroring nature.
模仿：模仿。这是柏拉图用来描述他认为艺术努力本质的词：反映自然。
oligarchy: a state ruled by a wealthy elite.
寡头政治：由富裕精英统治的国家。
philosopher kings: the Rulers in Plato’s ideal society. Philosophers were to be given this role because of their ability to perceive the Forms.
哲人国王：柏拉图理想社会中的统治者。哲学家之所以被赋予这个角色，是因为他们能够感知形式。
Rulers: the philosopher-kings who hold power in Plato’s republic.
统治者：在柏拉图的理想国中掌握权力的哲人国王。
timocracy: a state in which military honour is all important.
军政：一种军事荣誉至关重要的国家。
totalitarian state: a state in which everything is controlled and there is little or no scope for individual freedom.
极权国家：一种一切都受到控制且几乎没有个人自由空间的国家。
tyranny: a state ruled by a powerful leader.
暴政：由强大领导者统治的国家。
utopian: presenting a vision of an ideal society.
乌托邦：呈现理想社会的愿景。
Bernard Williams Plato (London: Phoenix, Great Philosophers series, 1998). This brief book provides the best available introduction to Plato’s work and includes some discussion of The Republic.
伯纳德·威廉姆斯《柏拉图》（伦敦：凤凰出版社，伟大哲学家系列，1998 年）。这本简短的书提供了对柏拉图作品的最佳介绍，并包括对《理想国》的讨论。
Julia Annas An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) and Nicholas Pappas Plato and The Republic (London: Routledge, 1995) are both excellent commentaries.
朱莉亚·安纳斯 《柏拉图的《理想国》导论》（牛津：克拉伦登出版社，1981 年）和尼古拉斯·帕帕斯 《柏拉图与《理想国》》（伦敦：劳特利奇，1995 年）都是优秀的评论。
Karl Popper The Open Society and its Enemies (London: Routledge, 1945) includes a convincing case against Plato’s republic, arguing that it would be a totalitarian nightmare. This serves as an antidote to the widespread tendency among Plato scholars to give his political proposals a more sympathetic treatment than they deserve. I discuss The Open Society and Its Enemies in Chapter 29, pp. 255–9.
卡尔·波普尔《开放社会及其敌人》（伦敦：劳特利奇，1945 年）对柏拉图的《理想国》提出了有力的反对意见，认为这将是一个极权主义的噩梦。这为柏拉图学者普遍倾向于对他的政治提案给予比其应得的更同情的对待提供了一个解药。我在第 29 章，第 255-259 页讨论了《开放社会及其敌人》。
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics
亚里士多德《尼科马科伦理学》
Aristotle was a practical man. Though taught by Plato, he rejected his teacher’s idea that reality lay beyond the everyday world in the realm of the Forms. He did not believe in Plato’s myth of the Cave. In Raphael’s painting The School of Athens (1511), Plato points skywards to the Forms; Aristotle, in contrast, reaches forward into the world. His studies went far beyond what we now think of as philosophy: he was, for example, one of the first great biologists. In philosophy his interests were wide-ranging, taking in metaphysics, ethics, politics and aesthetics.
亚里士多德是一个务实的人。虽然受到柏拉图的教导，但他拒绝了老师关于现实存在于超越日常世界的形式领域的观点。他不相信柏拉图的洞穴神话。在拉斐尔的画作《雅典学院》（1511）中，柏拉图指向天空中的形式；而亚里士多德则向前伸手进入世界。他的研究远远超出了我们现在所认为的哲学：例如，他是第一位伟大的生物学家之一。在哲学方面，他的兴趣广泛，涵盖了形而上学、伦理学、政治学和美学。
Despite the fact that his Nicomachean Ethics is only a collection of lecture notes, is uneven in style, obscure in places, and was certainly never intended for publication, it remains one of the most important works in the history of ethics. Here Aristotle asks one of the fundamental questions for all human beings, ‘How should we live?’, a question which was at the heart of ancient ethical discussions, but has been sadly neglected by twentieth-century philosophers. His answer, though complex, and in places bizarre, is important, not just as a landmark in the history of civilisation, but also as a significant influence on current philosophical debate.
尽管他的《尼科马科伦理学》仅仅是一部讲义的集合，风格不均匀，某些地方晦涩，并且显然从未打算出版，但它仍然是伦理学历史上最重要的著作之一。在这里，亚里士多德提出了一个所有人类都必须面对的基本问题：“我们应该如何生活？”，这个问题曾是古代伦理讨论的核心，但在二十世纪的哲学家中却被遗忘了。他的回答虽然复杂，某些地方甚至奇异，但重要性不仅体现在文明史上的里程碑，也对当前的哲学辩论产生了重要影响。
The Nicomachean Ethics is a dense and complex work, and scholars quibble about its precise interpretation; nevertheless, the central themes are easy enough to follow. Some of the key terms Aristotle used do not translate easily into English. In fact most philosophers who discuss Aristotle have found it more straightforward to use transliterations of a number of the Greek words rather than rely on confusing English near equivalents. One of the most important of such terms is eudaimonia.
《尼科马可伦理学》是一部内容丰富且复杂的著作，学者们对其精确的解释存在争议；然而，中心主题相对容易理解。亚里士多德使用的一些关键术语并不容易翻译成英语。事实上，大多数讨论亚里士多德的哲学家发现，使用一些希腊词的音译比依赖令人困惑的英语近似词更为直接。其中一个最重要的术语是 eudaimonia。
Eudaimonia: A Happy Life
幸福：快乐的生活
Eudaimonia is often translated as ‘happiness’, but that can be very misleading. It is sometimes also translated as ‘flourishing’, which, although slightly awkward, has more appropriate connotations: it, for instance, suggests the analogy between the flourishing of plants and the flourishing of human beings. Aristotle believes that we all want eudaimonia, by which he means that we all want our lives to go well. A eudaimon life is a life that is successful. It is the kind of life that if we could achieve it we would all choose; the kind of life we would want for those we love. Eudaimonia is always pursued as an end, never a means to an end. We may seek money, for instance, because it provides a means to buy expensive clothes, and we may buy expensive clothes because we believe they will make us more attractive to people we want to attract; we want to attract these people because we believe that they have a capacity to make our lives go well. But it doesn’t make any sense to ask why we want our lives to go well. Eudaimonia can’t serve any other purpose: it is the place where this sort of chain of explanation finishes. It doesn’t make sense to ask ‘Why pursue eudaimonia?’ since, for Aristotle, it is a conceptual truth that this is what all human beings do. Eudaimonia is not the only thing pursued as an end in itself; we may, for instance, listen to music, or spend time with our children, not because we expect to get anything further out of these activities, but because these are the ways we want to while away our time on earth. However, in such cases, we pursue these things because we believe, rightly or wrongly, that they are ingredients in a eudaimon life.
幸福通常被翻译为“快乐”，但这可能会非常误导。有时它也被翻译为“繁荣”，虽然稍显笨拙，但更合适的含义：例如，它暗示了植物的繁荣与人类的繁荣之间的类比。亚里士多德认为我们都想要幸福，他的意思是我们都希望我们的生活过得好。幸福的生活是一种成功的生活。如果我们能够实现这种生活，我们都会选择；这是我们希望我们所爱的人拥有的生活。幸福总是作为一种目的追求，而不是达到目的的手段。例如，我们可能追求金钱，因为它提供了购买昂贵衣服的手段，而我们可能购买昂贵的衣服，因为我们相信它们会让我们对我们想吸引的人更有吸引力；我们想吸引这些人，因为我们相信他们有能力让我们的生活过得好。但问我们为什么想要生活过得好是没有意义的。幸福不能服务于其他目的：这是这种解释链条结束的地方。问“为什么追求幸福？”是没有意义的。因为对于亚里士多德来说，这是所有人类所做的事情的概念真理。幸福并不是唯一作为目的追求的事物；例如，我们可能会听音乐，或与孩子们共度时光，并不是因为我们期望从这些活动中获得更多，而是因为这些是我们想要在地球上消磨时间的方式。然而，在这种情况下，我们追求这些事物是因为我们相信，无论对错，它们是幸福生活的组成部分。
One aim of the Nicomachean Ethics is to illuminate the pursuit of eudaimonia. If we know more about what it is that we are seeking and how it is characteristically achieved then we will be more likely to achieve it ourselves, even if ultimately, as Aristotle believed, our early training and current material circumstances will determine to a great extent our capacity to follow the right path. Aristotle, unlike many subsequent moral philosophers, was realistic about the influence of events beyond our control on the success of our lives. He thought that having a certain amount of money, reasonable looks, good ancestry and children were prerequisites for any genuinely eudaimon life. Without the benefit of such assets we may not be able to achieve the highest state of eudaimonia, but should tailor our actions to the particular circumstances we find ourselves in. For Aristotle living well is not a matter of applying general rules to specific cases so much as adapting our behaviour to the particular circumstances of our lives.
尼科马科伦理学的一个目标是阐明对幸福的追求。如果我们更清楚自己在追求什么以及如何特征性地实现它，那么我们就更有可能自己实现它，即使最终，正如亚里士多德所相信的，我们的早期训练和当前的物质环境在很大程度上决定了我们走上正确道路的能力。与许多后来的道德哲学家不同，亚里士多德对超出我们控制的事件对我们生活成功的影响持现实态度。他认为，拥有一定数量的钱、合理的外貌、良好的血统和孩子是任何真正幸福生活的前提。没有这些资产的好处，我们可能无法实现最高的幸福状态，但应该根据我们所处的特定环境调整我们的行为。对亚里士多德来说，过上好生活并不是将一般规则应用于具体案例，而是将我们的行为适应于我们生活的特定环境。
It is, Aristotle says, a mark of intelligence only to pursue the kind of precision appropriate to the field in which you are working. Judgements about how to live are only true for the most part. They don’t hold for every individual in every circumstance, so there are no hard-and-fast rules. Ethics is not a precise subject like mathematics. A carpenter’s interest in a right angle is a practical one; this is very different from a geometer’s interest. It would be a mistake to treat ethics as anything but a practical subject with its own standards of generality. And, as a practical subject, it aims to show us how to become good people, not simply to provide us with a better theoretical understanding of what the good life amounts to.
亚里士多德说，追求适合你所从事领域的精确性是智慧的标志。关于如何生活的判断大多数情况下只是正确的。它们并不适用于每个个体在每种情况下，因此没有严格的规则。伦理学不是像数学那样精确的学科。木匠对直角的兴趣是实用的；这与几何学家对直角的兴趣截然不同。将伦理学视为除了具有自己一般性标准的实用学科以外的任何东西都是错误的。作为一门实用学科，它旨在向我们展示如何成为好人，而不仅仅是为我们提供对美好生活的更好理论理解。
Despite believing that we all do and should pursue eudaimonia, Aristotle was very far from being a hedonist in the sense of advocating a life of sensual indulgence. He thought that those who want nothing more than the pleasures of sex, eating and drinking lower themselves to the level of cattle. Eudaimonia is not a blissful mental state. It is rather an activity, a way of living, one which brings with it its own pleasures, but which cannot be assessed in particular actions. The whole life of an individual has to be taken into account before we can say for certain that that person achieved eudaimonia: as Aristotle memorably put it, one swallow doesn’t make a summer, nor does one happy day guarantee a happy life. A tragedy towards the end of your life could put a completely different slant on the question of whether or not your life as a whole went well. There is, then, some truth to the idea that we can’t call someone’s life eudaimon until they are dead. Aristotle even considers the ways in which events after your death can affect the assessment of whether or not your life went well; his answer was that the fortunes of your descendants after your death can affect your eudaimonia to a limited extent.
尽管相信我们都应该追求幸福，亚里士多德在倡导感官享乐的意义上与享乐主义者相去甚远。他认为，那些只想要性、饮食等快乐的人降低了自己到牛的水平。幸福不是一种愉悦的心理状态。它更是一种活动，一种生活方式，带来了自身的快乐，但无法通过特定的行为来评估。在我们能够确定一个人是否达到了幸福之前，必须考虑到个人的整个生活：正如亚里士多德所说，一只燕子并不能代表夏天，也不是一天的快乐就能保证幸福的生活。你生命末期的一场悲剧可能会对你整个人生是否过得好产生完全不同的看法。因此，有一种观点是正确的，那就是在某人去世之前，我们不能称其生活为幸福。 亚里士多德甚至考虑了你死后事件如何影响对你生活是否美好的评估；他的回答是，你死后后代的命运在一定程度上可以影响你的幸福。
The Function of a Human being
人类的功能
Aristotle thought that human beings have a characteristic function or activity (an ergon). In other words, just as carpenters are recognisable by their characteristic activity (making things with wood), so human beings as a whole have a distinctive activity that makes us what we are. The word ‘function’ suggests that human beings were designed for a particular purpose, but this is not the connotation that Aristotle intends. He isn’t claiming the existence of a wise deity responsible for the construction of the species, but rather drawing our attention to the distinctive powers that we have that make us what we are and not something else. This human ergon can’t be bodily growth, since that is shared with plants. Bodily growth doesn’t distinguish a human being from a geranium. Nor could it be capacity for perception, because other animals have that: horses, for instance. The ergon of human beings is rational activity; this is what is most central to our lives as human beings.
亚里士多德认为人类具有一种特征性的功能或活动（ergon）。换句话说，就像木匠通过他们的特征活动（用木头制作东西）而被识别一样，人类整体上也有一种独特的活动，使我们成为我们自己。“功能”一词暗示人类是为了特定目的而设计的，但这并不是亚里士多德所意图的含义。他并不是在主张存在一个负责物种构造的智慧神，而是引起我们对使我们成为我们自己的独特能力的关注。这种人类的 ergon 不能是身体的生长，因为这与植物共享。身体的生长并不能区分人类和天竺葵。它也不可能是感知能力，因为其他动物也具备这一点：例如马。人类的 ergon 是理性活动；这正是我们作为人类生活中最核心的部分。
The good human being is someone who excels in this characteristic activity. Excellence at being human involves virtuous action. Aristotle’s conclusion is that the good life for human beings is a life of rational virtuous activity. It is not enough to have the potential to act virtuously. The winners at the Olympic Games are chosen only from the competitors and not from those who might have run faster had they entered the events. Similarly, only those who act win the reward in life. And the reward in life is true happiness. Roses flourish in a well-manured soil, growing strongly and flowering profusely; human beings flourish when living lives of rational virtuous activity. Much of the Nicomachean Ethics is taken up with spelling out what such lives might be like, what sort of character you need in order to live the good life. Central to this is an analysis of the virtues and how they are acquired.
优秀的人类是那些在这一特征活动中表现出色的人。成为人类的卓越涉及到美德行为。亚里士多德的结论是，人的美好生活是理性美德活动的生活。仅仅具备美德行为的潜力是不够的。奥林匹克运动会的获胜者仅从参赛者中选出，而不是从那些如果参加比赛可能跑得更快的人中选出。同样，只有那些付诸行动的人才能在生活中获得奖励。而生活中的奖励是真正的幸福。玫瑰在施肥良好的土壤中茁壮成长，强壮地生长并繁花似锦；人类在过着理性美德活动的生活时也会茁壮成长。《尼各马科伦理学》的大部分内容都在阐明这样的生活可能是什么样的，以及你需要什么样的品格才能过上美好的生活。中心内容是对美德的分析以及它们是如何获得的。
A virtue is a feature of one’s character: a disposition to act in a certain way in relevant circumstances. It is important to realise that the term ‘virtue’ used today has moral connotations: to call someone virtuous is to make a positive assessment of their moral character. But for Aristotle, the phrase translated as ‘virtue’, ethikai aretai, simply meant ‘excellence of character’ and had no moral implications in our sense of ‘moral’. Being virtuous in his sense is simply possessing and acting upon excellences of character, some of which may be completely irrelevant to estimates of your moral worth. In fact some commentators have even questioned the extent to which the Nicomachean Ethics is a work of moral philosophy in the sense that we now understand ‘moral’. Morality is usually thought to involve at least some concern for the interests of others: it wouldn’t make sense to say (using the present-day understanding of ‘morality’) ‘I have developed my own private morality which is entirely selfish.’ Aristotle’s main interest, however, was not in our concern for other people but in what it takes to make a success of your own life. In some ways the Nicomachean Ethics is like one of those practical manuals for self-development and greater personal efficiency that are so popular with managers today.
美德是一个人性格的特征：在相关情况下以某种方式行事的倾向。重要的是要意识到，今天使用的“美德”一词具有道德含义：称某人为有美德是对其道德品格的积极评估。但对亚里士多德而言，翻译为“美德”的短语 ethikai aretai 仅仅意味着“品格的卓越”，在我们理解的“道德”意义上没有道德含义。在他看来，有美德仅仅是拥有并践行品格的卓越，而其中一些可能与对你道德价值的评估完全无关。事实上，一些评论者甚至质疑《尼科马科伦理学》在我们现在理解的“道德”意义上是否是一部道德哲学作品。道德通常被认为至少涉及对他人利益的某种关心：用现在对“道德”的理解来说，称“我发展了完全自私的私人道德”是没有意义的。然而，亚里士多德的主要兴趣并不在于我们对他人的关心，而在于如何使自己的生活取得成功。 在某些方面，《尼科马科伦理学》就像那些如今在管理者中非常受欢迎的自我发展和提高个人效率的实用手册。
Aristotle describes several key virtues. Someone who is brave, for instance, is never so overcome with fear that he cannot act in the right way. A brave soldier will risk his own life to save his comrade and will not be reduced to inaction by fear; a brave dissident will stand up to government opposition and pronounce her beliefs even though this will mean certain imprisonment and possible torture or death. Someone who is generous will gladly give money or time to those who need it.
亚里士多德描述了几个关键美德。例如，一个勇敢的人从不会被恐惧压倒到无法以正确的方式行动。一个勇敢的士兵会冒着自己的生命危险去拯救战友，不会因恐惧而无所作为；一个勇敢的异议人士会勇敢地对抗政府的反对，表达她的信仰，即使这意味着必然的监禁和可能的酷刑或死亡。一个慷慨的人会乐意把金钱或时间给予那些需要帮助的人。
Aristotle distinguishes two types of virtue: the moral and the intellectual. Moral virtues, such as temperance, are acquired through early training and reinforced to become a matter of habit rather than conscious decision; intellectual virtues, such as intelligence, on the other hand, can be taught. The moral virtues are shaped by the non-rational elements of the individual; the intellectual virtues by the rational. Aristotle identifies a common structure to all the virtues: they fall between two extremes. This is the basis of his doctrine of the Golden Mean.
亚里士多德区分了两种美德：道德美德和智力美德。道德美德，如节制，是通过早期训练获得的，并被强化为习惯，而不是意识的选择；智力美德，如智力，则可以被教授。道德美德受到个体非理性元素的影响；智力美德则受到理性的影响。亚里士多德确定了所有美德的共同结构：它们介于两个极端之间。这是他黄金中庸理论的基础。
It is easiest to understand Aristotle’s notion of the Mean by considering some of his examples. The virtue of courage lies between two vices: a deficiency of courage is cowardice; an excess of it is rashness. The virtue of wittiness lies between the vices of boorishness and buffoonery; modesty between shyness and shamelessness. Notice that wittiness and modesty are not usually considered moral virtues, though courage might be.
理解亚里士多德的中庸概念最简单的方法是考虑他的一些例子。勇气的美德介于两种恶习之间：缺乏勇气是懦弱；过度的勇气是鲁莽。机智的美德介于粗俗和滑稽之间；谦逊介于害羞和无耻之间。请注意，机智和谦逊通常不被视为道德美德，尽管勇气可能被视为。
A common misinterpretation of the Doctrine of the Mean is that it is a counsel of moderation. As the mean always lies between two extremes of behaviour, it seems that Aristotle is advocating moderation in all things. However, just because the mean is between over-reacting and under-reacting, it doesn’t follow that the virtuous person always acts in a moderate way. For instance, if you were to see someone attacking a child, a moderate reaction would clearly be inappropriate. Aristotle’s theory, however, would probably support aggressive intervention in such circumstances. Such behaviour would lie between the extremes of indifference and vengeful violence.
对中庸之道的一个常见误解是它是温和的劝告。由于中庸总是位于两种行为的极端之间，因此似乎亚里士多德主张在所有事情上都要适度。然而，仅仅因为中庸介于过度反应和不足反应之间，并不意味着有德之人总是以适度的方式行事。例如，如果你看到有人攻击一个孩子，适度的反应显然是不合适的。然而，亚里士多德的理论可能会支持在这种情况下的积极干预。这种行为将介于冷漠和复仇性暴力的极端之间。
Virtuous action is always a mean of a kind that would be chosen by a person of practical wisdom, the phronimos. The phronimos is sensitive to the features of particular circumstances and an excellent judge of how to behave.
美德行为总是由具有实践智慧的人，即 phronimos 所选择的一种中庸之道。phronimos 对特定情况的特征非常敏感，并且是如何行为的优秀判断者。
Aristotle is particularly interested in action rather than just behaviour. Human beings can be said to act rather than just behave since in many areas of our lives we have a capacity for choice; in contrast, an ant simply behaves because it cannot deliberate on what it might or might not do. We usually only hold individuals responsible for their actions: if they could not help doing what they did, then it would be strange to blame them. Aristotle distinguishes intentional actions from two other forms of behaviour: involuntary and non-voluntary.
亚里士多德特别关注行动而不仅仅是行为。人类可以被认为是行动而不仅仅是行为，因为在我们生活的许多领域，我们有选择的能力；相比之下，蚂蚁只是行为，因为它无法考虑自己可能做或不做的事情。我们通常只对个人的行为负责：如果他们无法控制自己所做的事情，那么指责他们就显得奇怪。亚里士多德将有意的行动与另外两种行为区分开来：非自愿和非自发。
Involuntary behaviour results from either compulsion or ignorance. For instance, if someone pushes you through a window, you aren’t likely to be held responsible for breaking the glass, particularly if you didn’t want to break it. If you accidentally ate a toadstool, through ignorance, thinking it was a mushroom, this too would be involuntary. You might well regret the outcome in both cases, but in neither case do you have any direct control over what happens. These things happen against your will and you would not have done them if you could have prevented yourself from doing them. But some forced actions are different in that they still allow you to make a kind of choice. For instance, if the only way of saving a ship in a gale is to jettison the cargo, then when the captain orders this to be done it may seem that his action is voluntary in that he chooses to perform it. However, in another sense, it is forced by the extreme circumstances. In a different context the act of throwing your cargo overboard would be blameworthy, but in the particular circumstances it is forced by events.
非自愿行为源于强迫或无知。例如，如果有人把你推过窗户，你不太可能因为打破玻璃而被追究责任，特别是如果你并不想打破它。如果你因为无知而误食了毒蘑菇，以为它是普通蘑菇，这也是非自愿的。在这两种情况下，你可能会对结果感到后悔，但在这两种情况下，你都无法直接控制发生的事情。这些事情是在你意愿之外发生的，如果你能够阻止自己这样做，你是不会这样做的。但某些强迫行为则有所不同，因为它们仍然允许你做出某种选择。例如，如果在暴风中拯救一艘船的唯一方法是抛弃货物，那么当船长下令这样做时，他的行为似乎是自愿的，因为他选择去执行它。然而，从另一个角度来看，这种行为是被极端情况所迫。在不同的情况下，抛弃货物的行为是值得指责的，但在特定情况下，它是被事件所迫。
Aristotle considers, and rejects, the idea that you could be forced by desire for pleasure to behave in certain ways; for instance, that your lust might compel you to become a serial seducer, and so remove your responsibility for your actions. If you take this line, then, as Aristotle points out, consistency demands that you shouldn’t be praised for your good actions, since, if they arise from desire, they are equally outside your control.
亚里士多德考虑并拒绝了这样一种观点：你可能会被对快乐的渴望迫使以某种方式行事；例如，你的欲望可能会驱使你成为一个连续的诱惑者，从而免除你对自己行为的责任。如果你采取这种观点，那么，正如亚里士多德所指出的，一致性要求你不应因自己的善行而受到赞扬，因为如果这些行为源于欲望，它们同样超出了你的控制。
Non-voluntary or non-intentional behaviour differs from involuntary or unintentional in that you do not regret it. Regret of the consequences of unintentional behaviour shows that if you had had full control you would not have done what you did: you would not have let yourself be pushed through the window; or if you had had full knowledge you would never have eaten a toadstool. It is only external factors which led you to do what you did. If I tread on your toe without intending to, but don’t regret my action, then my action was non-voluntary.
非自愿或非故意的行为与非自发或无意的行为不同，因为你对此并不感到后悔。对无意行为后果的后悔表明，如果你完全控制了局面，你就不会做出你所做的事情：你不会让自己被推到窗外；或者如果你完全了解情况，你永远不会吃蘑菇。只有外部因素导致你做了你所做的事情。如果我无意中踩到你的脚趾，但并不后悔我的行为，那么我的行为就是非自愿的。
Akrasia: Weakness of will
无能为力：意志的软弱
Akrasia is usually translated as ‘incontinence’, a term which to most modern readers suggests a specific and often embarrassing loss of bodily self-control; but Aristotle meant something more general by the word. It is the familiar situation when you know what you should do, what would make your life more successful, yet you stubbornly choose what you know to be the worse option. Unlike incontinence in the medical sense, it is a voluntary action. For instance, you might know that marital infidelity will undermine your eudaimonia. Yet, faced with an attractive and willing adulterer, you may be overcome by your desire for immediate pleasure and succumb to temptation even though you are well aware that adultery will harm your prospects of eudaimonia and even though you, like all human beings, seek eudaimonia. You choose what you know to be worse for you. Aristotle, influenced by Plato, sees a problem in the idea that you might really know what would be the best course of action yet not choose it. For Plato, if you really know the Good, that is, have knowledge of the Form, then you automatically act in accordance with it. According to Plato, genuine akrasia cannot exist: any apparent instance of it must really be a case of ignorance of the Good. In contrast Aristotle maintains that the phenomenon of akrasia does actually occur. Those who suffer from it know in a general way that certain types of action are not good for them, and won’t make them flourish. They may even pay lip service to the idea that what they are doing in a particular case is wrong; but when they do this they don’t really feel it, but are simply reciting learnt lines. They are overcome by their appetite and they succumb to the temptation of immediate pleasures rather than acting in a way that is conducive to long-term flourishing. Even though they know at some level what is good for them, they don’t choose it because they don’t make the inference from the general principle to the particular case.
阿克拉西亚通常被翻译为“失禁”，这个术语对大多数现代读者来说暗示着一种特定且常常令人尴尬的身体自控力丧失；但亚里士多德对这个词的含义更为广泛。这是一个熟悉的情境，当你知道自己应该做什么，什么会让你的生活更成功时，你却固执地选择你知道的更糟糕的选项。与医学意义上的失禁不同，这是一种自愿的行为。例如，你可能知道婚外不忠会破坏你的幸福感。然而，面对一个有吸引力且愿意的通奸者时，你可能会被对即时快乐的渴望所压倒，屈服于诱惑，尽管你清楚地知道通奸会损害你获得幸福感的前景，尽管你和所有人类一样，追求幸福感。你选择了你知道对自己更糟糕的选项。亚里士多德受到柏拉图的影响，认为如果你真的知道什么是最佳的行动方案，却不选择它，这就是一个问题。对柏拉图来说，如果你真的知道善，即拥有对形式的知识，那么你就会自动按照它行事。 根据柏拉图的说法，真正的无能为力是不存在的：任何表面上的例子实际上都必须是对善的无知。相反，亚里士多德认为无能为力的现象确实存在。那些受到无能为力影响的人一般知道某些类型的行为对他们不好，也不会让他们繁荣。他们甚至可能口头上承认在特定情况下他们所做的事情是错误的；但当他们这样做时，他们并没有真正感受到，而只是简单地在背诵学到的台词。他们被欲望所压倒，屈服于即时享乐的诱惑，而不是以有利于长期繁荣的方式行事。尽管他们在某种程度上知道什么对他们是好的，但他们并没有选择它，因为他们没有将一般原则推断到特定案例中。
Towards the end of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle describes the kind of activity which he considers the most important ingredient in a good life: theoretical or contemplative activity. Despite devoting most of his book to questions of practical virtue with an emphasis on the kinds of action which would bring about flourishing, he reveals that reflecting on what you know is the supreme activity possible for human beings. His reasoning is as follows. Since the characteristic activity of human beings is rational activity, and since the excellence of anything at all arises from its fulfilment of its distinctive function, then it must be true that human excellence is achieved in rational activity. However, only gods would be able to sustain a life of uninterrupted philosophical contemplation; for human beings such contemplation is a vital ingredient, but can’t constitute the whole of the good life. Nevertheless, it is the highest form of activity open to us.
在《尼科马科伦理学》的结尾，亚里士多德描述了他认为良好生活中最重要的活动：理论或沉思活动。尽管他将书的大部分内容用于讨论实践美德的问题，并强调能够带来繁荣的行动类型，但他揭示了反思你所知道的事物是人类可能进行的最高活动。他的推理如下。由于人类的特征活动是理性活动，并且任何事物的卓越性都源于其对其独特功能的实现，那么人类的卓越性必然是在理性活动中实现的。然而，只有神才能维持不间断的哲学沉思生活；对于人类来说，这种沉思是一个重要的组成部分，但不能构成良好生活的全部。尽管如此，它仍然是我们能够进行的最高形式的活动。
Criticisms of the Nicomachean Ethics
对《尼科马科伦理学》的批评
Human nature
人性
The whole of Aristotle’s discussion of human excellence and character is based on the idea that there is such a thing as human nature and that what is most central to our humanity is our rational capacity. There are various ways in which Aristotle’s assumptions about human nature can be challenged.
亚里士多德关于人类卓越和品格的讨论完全基于这样一个观点：人性是存在的，而我们人性中最核心的部分是我们的理性能力。亚里士多德关于人性的假设可以通过多种方式受到挑战。
One radical approach is to deny that there is anything which merits the name ‘human nature’. This is the view of some existential philosophers, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, who think that any attempt to declare in advance what human beings must be is doomed to failure, since we create ourselves by our choices rather than conform to some pre-existing template.
一种激进的观点是否认有任何东西值得被称为“人性”。这是一些存在主义哲学家的看法，例如让-保罗·萨特，他们认为任何试图提前宣称人类必须是什么的尝试都是注定要失败的，因为我们是通过选择来创造自己的，而不是遵循某种预先存在的模板。
A second way of challenging this aspect of Aristotle’s approach is to criticise the particular account of human nature he gives and from which he derives the rest of his conclusions. Is a capacity for rational activity really what separates us from other animals? Why this and not our capacity to kill each other using weapons? Or perhaps our capacity to play musical instruments?
挑战亚里士多德方法的第二种方式是批评他所给出的关于人性的特定论述，并由此推导出他其余的结论。理性活动的能力真的是什么让我们与其他动物区分开来的吗？为什么是这个，而不是我们使用武器互相杀戮的能力？或者也许是我们演奏乐器的能力？
Incommensurability of values
价值的不可比性
For Aristotle there is one supreme form of life, the life of contemplation, which can be measured against other forms of life and found superior. But is this obviously so? Some philosophers have argued that many of the things which human beings value are simply incommensurable, that is, there is absolutely no way in which they can be compared, no form of measurement which would allow us to judge them comparatively. On this view, the contemplative life might be one valuable approach to living; but the life of the active participant in daily affairs might be another. There is no place from which we can sit back and judge the comparative merits of the two lives and no common currency of value in which they can be measured.
对于亚里士多德来说，唯一的至高无上的生活形式是沉思的生活，这种生活可以与其他生活形式进行比较并被认为更优越。但这显然是这样吗？一些哲学家认为，人类所重视的许多事物是根本无法比较的，也就是说，绝对没有任何方式可以对它们进行比较，没有任何测量形式可以让我们进行相对判断。在这种观点下，沉思的生活可能是一种有价值的生活方式；但参与日常事务的积极生活可能是另一种。我们没有一个可以坐下来评判这两种生活相对优劣的地方，也没有一种共同的价值标准可以用来衡量它们。
Egoistical
自私的
A further criticism of Aristotle’s ethics is that it only provides a recipe for an individual’s eudaimonia and shows no concern for the wellbeing of other people. It is an egoistical approach teaching its readers how to pursue their own best interests.
对亚里士多德伦理学的进一步批评是，它仅提供了个人幸福的配方，而对他人的福祉毫不关心。这是一种自私的方式，教导读者如何追求自己的最佳利益。
One response to this sort of criticism is that it simply fails to appreciate what the ancient Greeks understood by ethics. Individual character development was precisely the focus of Greek ethics. Another response is that the virtues Aristotle champions are, for the most part, precisely those needed by individuals if a society is to flourish.
对这种批评的一个回应是，它根本没有理解古希腊人对伦理的理解。个体品格的发展恰恰是希腊伦理的重点。另一个回应是，亚里士多德所倡导的美德在很大程度上正是个体在社会繁荣时所需要的。
Virtues seem arbitrary
美德似乎是任意的
From our perspective, the particular portfolio of virtues that Aristotle put together in the Nicomachean Ethics can be seen as a product of his environment. Aristotle did not challenge the status quo, but rather enshrined the pre-existing values of his society in the form of a philosophical treatise. For instance, he thought slavery an acceptable practice. His is a defence of the values esteemed by the nobility of ancient Athens. Yet he presents these values as if they were obviously part, not just of an ancient Athenian’s nature, but of human nature itself. He treats them as universal features of the human condition, albeit adaptable to particular circumstances.
从我们的角度来看，亚里士多德在《尼科马科伦理学》中所提出的特定美德组合可以被视为他所处环境的产物。亚里士多德并没有挑战现状，而是将他社会中已有的价值观以哲学论文的形式加以确立。例如，他认为奴隶制是一种可接受的做法。他为古雅典贵族所推崇的价值观辩护。然而，他将这些价值观呈现得仿佛它们不仅是古雅典人本性的组成部分，更是人性本身的组成部分。他将它们视为人类状况的普遍特征，尽管可以适应特定的情况。
However, the choices and omissions of virtues and vices appear arbitrary to many readers. Why, for instance, has he nothing to say about sympathy or altruism? His account of virtuous activity looks parochial. And if it is parochial, its relevance to present-day moral theorising must be diminished.
然而，许多读者认为美德和恶习的选择和遗漏显得任意。例如，为什么他对同情或利他主义没有任何评论？他对美德活动的描述看起来狭隘。如果它是狭隘的，那么它与当今道德理论的相关性必然会减弱。
Elitism
精英主义
Furthermore, Aristotle’s theory is unashamedly elitist in several ways. First, there is no sense that eudaimonia is available to everyone: you need good looks, children, a moderate income and a certain amount of good luck. Unlike many moral theories, with Aristotle’s there is no presumption that you can achieve the highest state by will power alone. External factors determine whether or not you lead a good life. Second, if we are to take seriously the suggestion that the good life is a life dominated by philosophical contemplation, then it is clear that only those fortunate enough to have time on their hands to engage in this sort of thought can lead a supremely good life.
此外，亚里士多德的理论在多个方面毫不掩饰地表现出精英主义。首先，没有任何迹象表明幸福是对每个人都可获得的：你需要良好的外貌、孩子、适度的收入和一定的好运。与许多道德理论不同，亚里士多德的理论并不假设你可以仅凭意志力达到最高境界。外部因素决定你是否过上好生活。其次，如果我们认真对待“美好生活是由哲学思考主导的生活”这一建议，那么显然，只有那些幸运到有时间进行这种思考的人才能过上极其美好的生活。
Aristotle would not have been bothered by the charge of elitism. However, it is an important feature of his theory and needs to be made explicit. Many present-day readers will feel that in its elitist elements the theory fails to capture something important about the nature of morality.
亚里士多德不会因为精英主义的指控而感到困扰。然而，这是他理论的一个重要特征，需要明确指出。许多现代读者会觉得，在其精英主义的元素中，这一理论未能捕捉到道德本质中的某些重要内容。
Vagueness
模糊性
Perhaps the most telling criticism of a theory explicitly intended to help us become better people is its vagueness about precisely how we are to behave. The doctrine of the Mean doesn’t provide much in the way of guidance. To say that we should act as the phronimos would act is uninformative unless we happen to have a phronimos with us to ask what he would do in the circumstances. Even within the theory there seems to be a conflict: are we supposed to commit ourselves to a life of virtuous action (the view which Aristotle expresses through large sections of the Nicomachean Ethics), or are we supposed to aim at one which includes substantial philosophical contemplation, the way of life endorsed towards the end of the book? Scholars try to reconcile these apparently opposed views, but it cannot be denied that Aristotle conspicuously fails to provide clear guidelines about how to live.
或许对一个明确旨在帮助我们成为更好人的理论最具说明性的批评是它对我们应该如何行为的模糊性。《中庸》教义并没有提供太多指导。说我们应该像 phronimos 那样行动是没有信息量的，除非我们恰好有一个 phronimos 在身边，可以询问他在这种情况下会怎么做。即使在理论内部，似乎也存在冲突：我们是应该致力于过一种美德行动的生活（这是亚里士多德在《尼各马可伦理学》中大量章节中表达的观点），还是应该追求一种包括实质性哲学思考的生活方式，这是书末所倡导的生活方式？学者们试图调和这些明显对立的观点，但不可否认的是，亚里士多德显然未能提供关于如何生活的明确指导。
384 | BC | Aristotle born in Stagira. |
Student of Plato in Athens. | ||
Tutor to Alexander the Great. | ||
Publishes on numerous topics including politics, tragedy and biology. | ||
322 | BC | Dies in Chalcis. |
akrasia: weakness of will: knowing what is best, but still choosing to do something else. Aristotle, unlike Plato, believes that weakness of will does genuinely occur.
无能为力：意志的弱点：知道什么是最好的，但仍然选择做其他事情。亚里士多德与柏拉图不同，他认为意志的弱点确实存在。
egoism: concern only with your own interests. The opposite of altruism.
自私：只关心自己的利益。与利他主义相对。
ergon: the characteristic function of anything.
ergon：任何事物的特征函数。
eudaimonia: happiness. For Aristotle this wasn’t a transient blissful mental state, but rather flourishing over the course of a whole life.
幸福。对亚里士多德来说，这不是一种短暂的幸福心理状态，而是整个生命过程中的繁荣。
Golden Mean: Aristotle’s doctrine that right action lies between two extremes.
中庸：亚里士多德的理论，认为正确的行为介于两个极端之间。
incommensurability: the impossibility of comparing two things because of the lack of a common currency in which comparison can be made.
不可比性：由于缺乏可以进行比较的共同标准，比较两件事的不可行性。
incontinence: akrasia, or weakness of will.
失禁：无能为力，或意志薄弱。
phronimos: the man of practical wisdom or prudence who is sensitive to particular circumstances and is a good judge of what to do.
phronimos：具有实践智慧或谨慎的男人，能够敏感地对待特定情况，并且善于判断该做什么。
virtue: a disposition to behave in a way that will make you a good person.
美德：一种倾向于以使你成为好人的方式行事的性格。
J. L. Ackrill Aristotle the Philosopher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981) is a good general introduction to Aristotle’s philosophy.
J. L. Ackrill 《哲学家亚里士多德》（牛津：牛津大学出版社，1981 年）是一本关于亚里士多德哲学的良好通用介绍。
J. O. Urmson Aristotle’s Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988) is a clear and very useful commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics.
J. O. Urmson 的《亚里士多德伦理学》（牛津：布莱克威尔，1988）是对《尼科马科伦理学》的清晰且非常有用的评论。
Amelie O. Rorty (ed.) Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980) is an excellent anthology of articles on this book.
阿梅莉·O·罗提（编）《亚里士多德伦理学论文集》（伯克利：加利福尼亚大学出版社，1980 年）是一本关于此书的优秀文章选集。
Boethius the Consolation of Philosophy
博伊提乌斯《哲学的安慰》
As The Consolation of Philosophy opens, Ancius Manlius Severinus Boethius is in a prison cell bemoaning his condition. He wants to die. He has nothing to hope for. Fortune, who gave him his wealth and freedom, has now taken both away. Then, as he is giving vent to his sorrow in the form of a poem, he becomes aware of a woman standing over him. Her height seems to fluctuate from average size to immeasurably tall. Her dress is embroidered at the bottom of the hem with the Greek letter pi; at the top is the letter theta; in between them is embroidered a ladder. Her dress is torn in places; she carries some books and a sceptre. This woman is Philosophy personified. The letter pi stands for practical philosophy (including ethics); the letter theta stands for contemplative philosophy (metaphysics and science).
《哲学的安慰》开篇时，安修斯·曼利乌斯·塞维里努斯·博伊修斯正坐在监狱的牢房里哀叹自己的境遇。他想要死去。他没有任何希望。曾经给予他财富和自由的命运，现在却夺走了这两样东西。然后，当他以诗歌的形式倾诉自己的悲伤时，他注意到一个女人站在他身边。她的身高似乎在平均身材和无可估量的高大之间波动。她的裙子底边绣有希腊字母π；顶部是字母θ；它们之间绣着一把梯子。她的裙子在某些地方破损；她手里拿着一些书和一个权杖。这个女人是哲学的化身。字母π代表实践哲学（包括伦理学）；字母θ代表沉思哲学（形而上学和科学）。
Philosophy rebukes Boethius for forsaking her. Through her dialogue with Boethius she offers him the consolation he is seeking. Although he has been unjustly condemned to death and has lost his great wealth, reputation, and the comforts of freedom, she points out the inner strength that she, Philosophy, can give him. She diagnoses his despair and provides soothing medicine in the form of reason. Philosophy in this form is a kind of self-help, a consolation to the mind. Boethius sometimes refers to Philosophy as his nurse.
哲学责备博伊修斯背弃了她。通过与博伊修斯的对话，她为他提供了他所寻求的安慰。尽管他被不公正地判处死刑，失去了巨大的财富、声誉和自由的舒适，但她指出了她，哲学，可以给予他的内在力量。她诊断了他的绝望，并以理性的形式提供了安慰的药物。在这种形式下，哲学是一种自助，是对心灵的安慰。博伊修斯有时称哲学为他的护士。
As far as we can tell, The Consolation of Philosophy was written in around 524, while Boethius was imprisoned in Pavia, awaiting execution for an alleged act of treason against the Gothic emperor Theodoric. This was a dramatic fall from eminence: Boethius had been one of the most respected and honoured members of Theodoric’s government. Boethius was subsequently tortured and bludgeoned to death, an ignominious way to die that a citizen of his standing might have hoped to have avoided.
据我们所知，《哲学的安慰》大约是在 524 年写成的，当时博伊提乌斯在帕维亚被监禁，等待因被指控对哥特皇帝狄奥多里克的叛国行为而处决。这是一个戏剧性的堕落：博伊提乌斯曾是狄奥多里克政府中最受尊敬和荣誉的成员之一。博伊提乌斯随后被折磨并打死，这是一种耻辱的死法，一个像他这样地位的公民本可能希望避免。
Although he published other books on a wide range of subjects, including music, and translated a substantial part of Aristotle’s works into Latin, it is for The Consolation of Philosophy, his last work, that he is now remembered. It is a compelling book written in a mixture of prose, poetry and dialogue. During the medieval and Renaissance periods it was one of the most widely read books; Chaucer translated it, as did Elizabeth I. Its philosophical content is not wholly original, but the manner in which the ideas are communicated makes it an entertaining as well as a stimulating book to read.
尽管他出版了其他关于广泛主题的书籍，包括音乐，并将亚里士多德的部分作品翻译成拉丁文，但他现在被人们铭记的却是他的最后一部作品《哲学的安慰》。这是一本以散文、诗歌和对话混合写成的引人入胜的书。在中世纪和文艺复兴时期，它是最广泛阅读的书籍之一；乔叟和伊丽莎白一世都翻译过它。它的哲学内容并非完全原创，但思想传达的方式使其成为一本既有趣又发人深省的读物。
Philosophy, personified as a woman, as we have seen, comes to visit Boethius in his prison cell. But what did Boethius mean by Philosophy? He was a Neo-Platonist, that is, his view of philosophy was deeply influenced by Plato’s. In particular, he followed Plato in believing that philosophical contemplation takes us away from the misleading world of appearances to a true experience of reality. He repeatedly uses the image of the shadowy world of appearances which is contrasted with the light of truth. This is an allusion to Plato’s image of the Sun as the symbol of the Form of the Good in the parable of the cave that Plato uses in The Republic.
哲学，拟人化为一位女性，正如我们所见，来探访博伊提乌斯在监狱牢房中的生活。但博伊提乌斯所指的哲学是什么呢？他是一位新柏拉图主义者，也就是说，他的哲学观深受柏拉图的影响。特别是，他跟随柏拉图的观点，认为哲学的沉思使我们远离误导性的表象世界，进入对现实的真实体验。他反复使用表象的阴影世界这一意象，与真理的光明形成对比。这是对柏拉图在《理想国》中使用的洞穴寓言中，太阳作为善的形式象征的暗示。
Philosophy teaches Boethius – or rather reminds him – that as a philosopher he should be immune from the effects of good or bad fortune. The fact that Philosophy jogs Boethius’ memory is probably meant, again, as an allusion to a doctrine of Plato’s: the view that knowledge is a kind of recollection.
哲学教导博伊修斯——或者说提醒他——作为一名哲学家，他应该免受好运或坏运的影响。哲学唤起博伊修斯记忆的事实，可能再次暗指柏拉图的一种学说：知识是一种回忆的观点。
A true philosopher is impervious to chance. The wheel of Fortune inevitably turns, and those who are at the top find themselves very soon at the bottom. That is the nature of Fortune: to be fickle. In fact, Philosophy tells him, it is when she is adverse that Fortune best serves humanity. Good fortune dupes us, because it gives us the illusion of true happiness; but when Fortune takes off her mask and shows us how treacherous she can be, that is when we learn most. Adversity teaches us the frailty of the sorts of happiness that wealth, fame and pleasure can inspire. It teaches us which of our friends are true friends.
真正的哲学家对偶然无动于衷。命运之轮不可避免地转动，那些处于顶端的人很快就会发现自己处于底部。这就是命运的本质：多变。事实上，哲学告诉他，正是当命运逆境时，命运最能服务于人类。好运欺骗我们，因为它给了我们真正幸福的错觉；但当命运摘下面具，向我们展示她是多么的背叛时，我们才学到最多。逆境教会我们财富、名声和快乐所能激发的幸福是多么脆弱。它教会我们哪些朋友是真正的朋友。
Boethius had indeed been blessed with good fortune: his two sons were made consuls on the same day as a public demonstration of gratitude for his contribution to the running of the state. His imprisonment, though, takes his happiness away. Philosophy tells him that he is being foolish: true happiness can’t be found in anything that is governed by chance such as wealth or fame. It must come from within. Here Boethius is influenced by aspects of Stoicism, a philosophy which emphasises the need for equanimity in the face of external trouble. For a Stoic, happiness comes from inner resources and is immune to the effects of chance and misfortune.
博伊修斯确实曾受到好运的眷顾：他的两个儿子在同一天被任命为执政官，以此作为对他为国家运作所作贡献的公开感谢。然而，他的监禁却夺走了他的幸福。哲学告诉他，他在愚蠢：真正的幸福不能在财富或名声等偶然支配的事物中找到。它必须来自内心。在这里，博伊修斯受到斯多噶主义的影响，这是一种强调在外部困扰面前保持平静的哲学。对于斯多噶主义者来说，幸福来自内在资源，不受偶然和不幸的影响。
Boethius laments the fact that there doesn’t seem to be justice in the world. Evil people often flourish, while the good and virtuous suffer. In response Philosophy claims that it is the virtuous who are truly rewarded since they have the power to attain the ultimate end, genuine happiness, through their pursuit of the good. The evil only appear to flourish: in fact by abandoning their reason they become subhuman and are more deserving of pity and remedial treatment than of retributive punishment.
博伊修斯哀叹世界似乎没有正义。邪恶的人常常繁荣，而善良和有德行的人却遭受痛苦。对此，哲学声称，真正得到回报的是那些有德行的人，因为他们有能力通过追求善来获得最终的目标——真正的幸福。邪恶的人看似繁荣：实际上，通过放弃理智，他们变得不再是人，更值得同情和救助，而不是应受惩罚。
Having reminded Boethius that true happiness, which everyone seeks, comes from philosophical contemplation, not from fame, fortune or pleasure, and that, despite appearances, the wicked cannot genuinely flourish, Philosophy engages him in debate about God and human free will. Here the book becomes a serious philosophical dialogue in the style of Plato’s dialogues. Boethius takes on the role of questioner, and Philosophy explains the nature of God to him, leading him with the aid of reason away from mere appearances to a world of purity and light.
在提醒博厄修斯，真正的幸福是每个人所追求的，它来自于哲学的沉思，而不是名声、财富或享乐，并且尽管表面上看起来如此，邪恶的人无法真正繁荣之后，哲学与他展开了关于上帝和人类自由意志的辩论。在这里，这本书变成了类似于柏拉图对话的严肃哲学对话。博厄修斯扮演提问者的角色，哲学向他解释上帝的本质，借助理智引导他走出表象，进入一个纯净和光明的世界。
Much of the discussion focuses on the question of how humans could have free will, the capacity for genuine choice over what they do, and yet at the same time there could be a God who knows in advance precisely what they will in fact do. Without free will there cannot be rational action; yet if God can see what we are going to do, it is not at all clear in what sense we are genuinely free to exercise choice.
许多讨论集中在一个问题上：人类如何能够拥有自由意志，即对自己所做的事情有真正的选择能力，而与此同时又可能存在一个上帝，能够提前确切知道他们实际上会做什么。如果没有自由意志，就不可能有理性的行动；然而，如果上帝能够看到我们将要做的事情，那么我们在什么意义上真正自由地行使选择就不那么清楚了。
Philosophy’s answer to this conundrum in part turns on the distinction between predestination and foreknowledge. Those who believe in predestination argue that God has brought it about that certain events will inevitably happen in the future; foreknowledge is simply knowing in advance what will happen. Philosophy argues that God’s knowing that certain choices will be made does not cause those things to happen – human beings can still make choices. So divine foreknowledge is compatible with genuine choice for humans since knowing what will happen does not predestine it to happen.
哲学对这个难题的回答部分取决于预定论和先知知的区别。相信预定论的人认为，上帝使得某些事件在未来必然发生；先知知只是提前知道将会发生什么。哲学认为，上帝知道某些选择将被做出并不会导致这些事情发生——人类仍然可以做出选择。因此，神圣的先知知与人类的真实选择是兼容的，因为知道将会发生什么并不意味着它注定会发生。
And yet it might seem that if God knows in advance what we will choose, our apparent choice is an illusion, not really free will, but the fantasy of it. Philosophy’s response to this line of criticism is that our idea of foreknowledge erroneously, but understandably, rests on human experience of time. But God is not like us in important respects. In particular God is outside time and lives in an eternal present. Because God stands outside time, His foreknowledge is comparable to our knowledge of the present: past, present and future are all as one to Him. Our perception of what is happening now doesn’t make what is happening happen. Nor then does God’s foreknowledge wipe out the possibility of genuine free choice about what we do. Our mistake is to think of God’s relation to time as like our own. God is aware of everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen.
然而，似乎如果上帝预先知道我们将选择什么，那么我们表面的选择就是一种幻觉，而不是真正的自由意志，而是这种自由意志的幻想。哲学对这一批评的回应是，我们对预知的理解错误地但可以理解地基于人类对时间的经验。但上帝在重要方面与我们不同。特别是，上帝超越时间，生活在一个永恒的现在。因为上帝站在时间之外，他的预知可以与我们对现在的知识相比较：过去、现在和未来对他而言都是一体的。我们对现在发生的事情的感知并不会使正在发生的事情发生。因此，上帝的预知也并不会消除我们在行动上做出真正自由选择的可能性。我们的错误在于将上帝与时间的关系视为与我们自己的相似。上帝意识到一切已经发生、正在发生和将要发生的事情。
Philosophy ends the book by exhorting Boethius to virtue since he is living in the sight of a judge who, from a position outside time sees and knows everything. Thus in The Consolation of Philosophy Boethius’ intellectual journey retraces the path of the philosopher in Plato’s Republic. Boethius leaves behind the shadowy world of appearances – the equivalent of the flickering shadows on the wall of the cave – and achieves knowledge of the Form of the Good and ultimately of God.
哲学在书的结尾劝勉博伊修斯追求美德，因为他生活在一位法官的视线之中，这位法官从时间之外的位置看见并知道一切。因此，在《哲学的安慰》中，博伊修斯的智力旅程重走了柏拉图《理想国》中哲学家的道路。博伊修斯抛弃了模糊的表象世界——相当于洞穴墙壁上闪烁的影子——并获得了对善的形式以及最终对上帝的知识。
Criticism of the Consolation of Philosophy
对《哲学的安慰》的批评
Rationalisation?
合理化？
Boethius’ celebration of everything that is insulated from the effects of chance might be seen as a rationalisation. Given that he was in prison and facing torture and almost certain execution, with no hope of retrieving his former wealth and public esteem, is it surprising that he should celebrate rational activity above all else? Nothing else significant is left to him. Perhaps his rejection of wealth and fame as significant elements in a life that goes well, is just the self-serving argument of a desperate man.
博伊修斯对一切免受偶然影响的庆祝可能被视为一种合理化。考虑到他身处监狱，面临酷刑和几乎肯定的处决，且没有希望恢复他曾经的财富和公众声望，他庆祝理性活动高于一切，难道不令人惊讶吗？对他来说，别的什么重要的东西都已不复存在。也许他对财富和名声作为美好生活中重要元素的拒绝，只是一个绝望者的自利论点。
Even if it is true that Boethius saw the overriding value of rational deliberation because little else was left to him, as this criticism suggests, it doesn’t follow that he was wrong. The truth of the matter is independent of his motivation for believing it. An alternative interpretation is that Boethius was jolted from his complacency by having everything he had thought valuable to him removed. Only then could he come to understand (or rather recollect) Philosophy’s powerful message; only then could he return to the austere vision of self-sufficient happiness that Philosophy teaches. This interpretation is supported in the text by Philosophy’s insistence that adversity can draw people back to the true way of goodness, whereas the external trappings of success can lure them into believing that they have achieved true happiness.
即使波伊修斯看到理性思考的压倒性价值是因为他别无选择，正如这种批评所暗示的，这并不意味着他是错的。事实的真相独立于他相信这一点的动机。另一种解释是，波伊修斯因失去他认为有价值的一切而被迫从自满中觉醒。只有在那时，他才能理解（或者说回忆起）哲学的强大信息；只有在那时，他才能回归哲学所教导的自给自足幸福的严峻愿景。这种解释在文本中得到了支持，哲学坚持认为逆境可以将人们拉回真正的善之路，而成功的外在表象则可能诱使他们相信自己已经获得了真正的幸福。
So, even if Boethius’ motivation for believing what Philosophy taught him was suspect, it does not follow that her message is in error. What would be devastating to Philosophy’s doctrine, however, would be the discovery that in fact wealth, fame and other worldly goods are an essential part of happiness. Aristotle, for example, believed that a certain amount of wealth, and having children of one’s own, were important ingredients in happiness. If he was right, then Boethius’ attempt to gain true consolation from philosophy alone was destined to failure.
因此，即使博爱修斯相信哲学所教导的内容的动机值得怀疑，但这并不意味着她的信息是错误的。然而，哲学教义的毁灭性打击将是发现财富、名声和其他世俗财富实际上是幸福的一个重要部分。例如，亚里士多德认为，一定数量的财富和拥有自己的孩子是幸福的重要成分。如果他是对的，那么博爱修斯仅仅依靠哲学获得真正安慰的尝试注定要失败。
c. | 480 | born in Rome. |
c. | 524 | writes The Consolation of Philosophy and is executed. |
foreknowledge: knowing in advance what will happen.
预知：提前知道将会发生什么。
free will: the ability to make genuine choices; this is usually contrasted with determinism, which is the view that all our thoughts and actions are caused in such a way that we have no choice about what to think or do.
自由意志：做出真实选择的能力；这通常与决定论相对立，决定论认为我们所有的思想和行为都是以一种我们无法选择思考或行动的方式造成的。
Neo-Platonism: a modified version of Plato’s philosophy.
新柏拉图主义：柏拉图哲学的一个修订版。
Stoicism: the Ancient Greek school of philosophy which emphasised that honour and wealth should not be pursued for their own sake and that happiness can be achieved by elimination of the passions.
斯多葛主义：古希腊哲学学派，强调荣誉和财富不应为其本身而追求，幸福可以通过消除激情来实现。
V.E. Watts’ introduction to his translation of The Consolation of Philosophy (London: Penguin, 1969) gives a clear account of Boethius’ life and writing.
V.E. Watts 对他翻译的《哲学的安慰》（伦敦：企鹅出版社，1969 年）的介绍清晰地叙述了博伊提乌斯的生平和著作。
C.S. Lewis The Discarded Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964) includes an interesting discussion of The Consolation of Philosophy.
C.S. 路易斯 《被遗弃的形象》（剑桥：剑桥大学出版社，1964 年）中包含了对《哲学的安慰》的有趣讨论。
Niccolò Machiavelli the Prince
尼科洛·马基雅维利 《君主论》
Most readers of The Prince expect it to be a self-help manual for the ruthless. But the book is far subtler than that. Although Niccolò Machiavelli does advocate dissimulation and cruelty at times, he reserves his praise for those who know how and when to use force and guile. He explains how a strong and effective ruler can best serve the interests of the state. His advice is not meant for just anyone: it is advice for princes – rulers whose actions determine the fate of their subjects. Such people, he suggests should not be squeamish. They need to act swiftly and effectively to do what is best. And what is best for the state may be to ignore conventional morality.
《君主论》的大多数读者期望它是一本无情者的自助手册。但这本书远比那更微妙。尽管尼科洛·马基雅维利确实在某些时候提倡伪装和残酷，但他更赞赏那些知道如何以及何时使用武力和狡诈的人。他解释了一个强大而有效的统治者如何最好地服务于国家的利益。他的建议并不是针对任何人：这是给王子的建议——那些行动决定其臣民命运的统治者。他建议这样的人不应过于敏感。他们需要迅速而有效地采取行动，以做出最佳选择。而对国家来说，最佳选择可能是忽视传统道德。
Machiavelli had a successful career as a statesman in his native Florence. In 1513, however, he was accused of plotting against the powerful Medici family. He was imprisoned, tortured, and then sent into exile just outside the city. It seems that he wrote The Prince in order to demonstrate his suitability as an adviser to new princes. It was a kind of calling card intended to help him re-enter the fray of political life. In this respect it failed. He did not get the position he hoped for. First published in 1532, shortly after Machiavelli’s death, The Prince has always been a controversial book. Today it is frequently cited in discussions of the alleged inevitability of ‘dirty hands’ in politics and the adjective ‘machiavellian’ is used, misleadingly, to describe cunning pursuit of self-interest.
马基雅维利在他故乡佛罗伦萨的政治生涯非常成功。然而，在 1513 年，他被指控策划反对强大的美第奇家族。他被监禁、拷打，然后被流放到城市外。看来他写《君主论》是为了证明自己作为新君主顾问的适合性。这是一种名片，旨在帮助他重新进入政治生活的斗争。在这方面，它失败了。他没有得到他所希望的职位。《君主论》于 1532 年首次出版，正值马基雅维利去世不久，一直以来都是一本有争议的书。今天，它常常在关于政治中所谓“肮脏手段”不可避免性的讨论中被引用，而“马基雅维利式”这个形容词则被误用来形容狡猾地追求自我利益。
The Prince is written in the genre of ‘mirrors for princes’ – short tracts advising and inspiring rulers. These were popular in the Renaissance. Typically they would counsel such virtues as courage and compassion. In complete contrast, Machiavelli’s advice was that a successful prince needs to learn how not to be good, to take swift and sometimes cruel action when this is necessary. A successful prince will only honour his word when it suits him to do so, though it usually pays him to appear honest. He needs to act like a fox in order to recognise and avoid the traps others set for him, but also, sometimes as a lion to frighten off the wolves that surround him. The message is that a prince needs to know how to act like a beast: a challenge to the humanistic tradition in which princes were expected to act as moral exemplars to their people.
《君主论》属于“君主镜鉴”这一类型——短小的文章，旨在为统治者提供建议和启发。这在文艺复兴时期非常流行。通常，这些文章会劝告诸如勇气和同情等美德。与此完全相反，马基雅维利的建议是，一个成功的君主需要学习如何不做好人，在必要时采取迅速而有时残酷的行动。一个成功的君主只有在对自己有利时才会遵守诺言，尽管通常表现得诚实对他有利。他需要像狐狸一样行动，以识别和避免他人为他设下的陷阱，但有时也需要像狮子一样，以吓跑围绕他的狼。信息是，君主需要知道如何像野兽一样行动：这是对人文主义传统的挑战，在这种传统中，君主被期望作为道德榜样来对待他们的人民。
Machiavelli has a low view of human nature. Based on his own observation, and his knowledge of Florentine history and classical texts, he declares that people behave in predictably bad ways. They are fickle, they lie, they shun danger, and they are greedy. In these circumstances, a prince needs to use fear to achieve effective rule: being loved isn’t a reliable source of power, since people break bonds of gratitude when it suits them to do so. If you have a choice it is best to be both loved and feared; but if you have to choose one above the other, choose to be feared.
马基雅维利对人性持有低估的看法。根据他自己的观察，以及他对佛罗伦萨历史和古典文本的了解，他宣称人们的行为是可预测地恶劣的。他们善变，撒谎，逃避危险，并且贪婪。在这种情况下，王子需要利用恐惧来实现有效统治：被爱并不是一个可靠的权力来源，因为人们在适合自己的时候会打破感恩的纽带。如果有选择，最好既被爱又被惧；但如果必须在两者之间选择，选择被惧。
Machiavelli is interested in how people actually behave rather than in how they ought to behave. His point is that unless a prince recognises how fickle human beings really are and always have been, he is likely to come to grief. It is no use trusting people to keep their promises if they are in fact likely to break them. And the prince should not feel bound to keep his promises in such circumstances: that would be foolhardy. Machiavelli argues that the successful prince should follow a very different code from that advocated by traditional morality, whether that comes from a classical or Christian source.
马基雅维利关注的是人们实际的行为，而不是他们应该如何行为。他的观点是，除非一个王子认识到人类是多么善变，并且一直以来都是如此，否则他很可能会遭遇失败。如果人们实际上可能会违背承诺，那么信任他们遵守承诺是没有用的。在这种情况下，王子也不应该感到有义务遵守自己的承诺：那将是愚蠢的。马基雅维利认为，成功的王子应该遵循与传统道德所倡导的截然不同的准则，无论这些道德来自古典还是基督教的来源。
Appearance is everything for a prince. People react to superficial characteristics and rarely, if ever, perceive a prince as he really is. Consequently a prince must manipulate the way he appears, even if, behind the mask, he is something quite different.
外表对王子来说至关重要。人们对表面的特征作出反应，几乎从不真正理解王子的真实面貌。因此，王子必须操控自己的外在形象，即使在面具背后，他实际上是截然不同的。
The key concept in understanding The Prince is, in Italian, virtù, usually translated as ‘prowess’. Although it comes from the Latin word for virtue (virtus), it has, for Machiavelli, a very different meaning. Throughout the book Machiavelli’s aim is to explain how a prince can display this quality of virtù. Virtù is the ability to act swiftly and effectively to do whatever will secure the safety and continuing prosperity of the state. This may mean making false promises, murdering those who threaten you, even, where necessary, butchering your own supporters.
理解《君主论》的关键概念是意大利语中的 virtù，通常翻译为“才能”。尽管它源自拉丁语的美德（virtus），但对马基雅维利来说，其含义截然不同。在整本书中，马基雅维利的目标是解释一个君主如何展现这种 virtù的品质。Virtù是迅速有效地采取行动以确保国家安全和持续繁荣的能力。这可能意味着做出虚假的承诺，谋杀威胁你的人，甚至在必要时屠杀自己的支持者。
Virtù will increase his chances of success as a ruler, but even a virtuoso ruler (one who displays virtù) won’t necessarily flourish. Machiavelli believes that half of our lives are governed by chance events over which we have no control: no matter how well-prepared he may be, a prince’s projects can still be thwarted by misfortune. Fortune is like a river which floods its banks: once it is in full flood, there is nothing anyone can do to control it. But this doesn’t stop us from taking action before the river floods, so that the damage caused will be less severe. Chance events usually cause most damage where no precautions have been taken. Machiavelli does, however, believe that fortune favours the young and the bold. In a disturbing metaphor, fortune is a woman who responds to the advances of an audacious young man who beats and coerces her. Virtù is the manly quality he uses to subdue her.
Virtù将增加他作为统治者成功的机会，但即使是一个展现出 virtù的优秀统治者也不一定会繁荣。马基雅维利认为，我们生活的一半是由我们无法控制的偶然事件所支配：无论他准备得多么充分，王子的计划仍然可能被厄运所破坏。运气就像一条泛滥的河流：一旦洪水泛滥，任何人都无法控制它。但这并不妨碍我们在河流泛滥之前采取行动，以减少造成的损害。偶然事件通常在没有采取预防措施的地方造成最大的损害。然而，马基雅维利确实相信，运气偏爱年轻人和勇敢者。在一个令人不安的隐喻中，运气是一位女性，她回应一个大胆年轻人的追求，而这个年轻人则对她施加暴力和威逼。Virtù是他用来征服她的男性品质。
Machiavelli’s model of a prince who demonstrated virtù was Cesare Borgia. His prowess involved tricking the Orsini into coming to Sinigaglia where he had them murdered. However, the move of Borgia’s which Machiavelli seems to appreciate most was taken against one of his own employees. Once Borgia had taken control of Romagna he placed a cruel henchman, Remirro de Orco, in charge, who quickly pacified the region through violence. Borgia decided that such cruelties could grow intolerable, and in order to expunge the hatred that was beginning to be directed at him, Borgia had Remirro de Orco murdered, and his body left hacked in two halves in a public piazza. With this single brutal spectacle he kept the people of Romagna both appeased and stupefied. Machiavelli applauds Borgia’s actions as skilful uses of cruelty. He contrasts Borgia’s approach with that of the ruthless tyrant Agathocles who was little more than a thug and whose actions failed to display virtù.
马基雅维利所描述的展现美德的王子模型是切萨雷·博尔贾。他的才能包括欺骗奥尔西尼家族来到西尼加利亚，并在那里将他们谋杀。然而，马基雅维利似乎最欣赏博尔贾的举动是针对他自己的一名员工。当博尔贾控制了罗马涅后，他任命了一个残忍的爪牙雷米罗·德·奥尔科负责，该爪牙迅速通过暴力平息了该地区。博尔贾决定这种残酷可能会变得不可容忍，为了消除开始针对他的仇恨，博尔贾让雷米罗·德·奥尔科被谋杀，并将他的尸体分成两半，留在一个公共广场上。通过这一单一的残酷景象，他让罗马涅的人民既感到安抚又感到震惊。马基雅维利称赞博尔贾的行为是巧妙地运用了残酷。他将博尔贾的做法与无情的暴君阿卡托克利斯的做法进行了对比，后者不过是个流氓，其行为未能展现美德。
Cesare Borgia Versus Agathocles
切萨雷·博尔贾对抗阿卡托克勒斯
Agathocles became king of Syracuse by crime: he slaughtered the senators and richest citizens of Syracuse and simply seized power. He ruled and defended his country, but did so with cruelty and inhumanity. In Machiavelli’s eyes his actions should not be confused with virtù. What distinguished Borgia from Agathocles? Machiavelli is not completely clear about what sets them apart; however, the most plausible interpretation is this. They both used cruelty effectively and economically. Borgia’s actions, however, had they achieved their end, would have brought about a situation that was in the common interest (despite being almost certainly inspired by a lust for power). Agathocles, in contrast, was a brutal tyrant whose actions left Syracuse in a worse situation than before: his actions were nothing more than criminal. Hence Borgia demonstrated virtù; Agathocles did not.
阿伽托克利斯通过犯罪成为锡拉库萨的国王：他屠杀了锡拉库萨的参议员和最富有的市民，简单地夺取了权力。他统治并捍卫了他的国家，但却以残酷和不人道的方式进行。 在马基雅维利看来，他的行为不应与美德混淆。博尔贾与阿伽托克利斯有什么区别？马基雅维利并没有完全清楚地说明他们的区别；然而，最合理的解释是这一点。他们都有效且经济地使用了残酷。然而，博尔贾的行为如果达到了目的，将会带来一个符合共同利益的局面（尽管几乎可以肯定是出于对权力的渴望）。相比之下，阿伽托克利斯是一个残暴的暴君，他的行为使锡拉库萨的情况比之前更糟：他的行为无非是犯罪。因此，博尔贾展现了美德；阿伽托克利斯则没有。
The fact that Machiavelli condemns Agathocles’ actions should silence those who claim that Machiavelli simply approves of immorality. It is true that he approves of some actions which conventional morality would label ‘immoral’, such as Borgia’s treatment of Remirro de Orco; and it is certainly true that he had no respect whatsoever for what we would now see as basic human rights. He even seems to take delight in descriptions of bloodshed. However, there are actions, such as those of Agathocles, of which he disapproves.
马基雅维利谴责阿伽托克利斯的行为这一事实应该让那些声称马基雅维利只是赞同不道德行为的人闭嘴。确实，他赞同一些传统道德会标记为“非道德”的行为，比如博尔贾对雷米罗·德·奥尔科的处理；而且他对我们现在视为基本人权的东西毫无尊重。他甚至似乎对血腥场面的描述感到愉悦。然而，有些行为，比如阿伽托克利斯的行为，是他所不赞同的。
Interpretations of the Prince
王子的解读
Satirical?
讽刺的？
Some commentators have found Machiavelli’s approach to politics so extreme that they have assumed he must be satirising tyrannical princes. Surely, they argue, he can’t have seriously held up Cesare Borgia as a model of a good prince. By ironically championing the immoral actions of a ruthless prince, they claim, he was really criticising rather than endorsing that approach to statecraft. This seems to have been Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s view of The Prince.
一些评论家认为，马基雅维利对政治的看法极端到让他们假设他一定是在讽刺暴虐的王子。他们认为，他不可能认真地将切萨雷·博尔贾视为好王子的典范。他们声称，通过讽刺性地支持一个无情王子的非道德行为，他实际上是在批评而不是支持这种治国方式。这似乎是让-雅克·卢梭对《君主论》的看法。
There is very little evidence in support of such an interpretation apart from the fact that in his later book, Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli reveals his republican sympathies: a fact which might lend support to the view that he was fundamentally opposed to the idea that Florence should be ruled by a prince. The consensus of critical opinion, however, is that Machiavelli was writing in earnest in The Prince, and this explains why the work is so challenging.
除了他在后来的著作《论李维》中透露出自己的共和主义倾向这一事实外，几乎没有证据支持这种解释：这一事实可能支持他根本上反对佛罗伦萨由王子统治的观点。然而，批评界的共识是，马基雅维利在《君主论》中是认真写作的，这也解释了为什么这部作品如此具有挑战性。
Amoral?
非道德的？
An alternative interpretation of The Prince is that Machiavelli was giving instructions for those who wanted to retain power and didn’t care in the slightest about morality. On this interpretation Machiavelli is amoral, completely outside morality, and simply giving guidance to those who are prepared to act like psychopaths. This interpretation is implausible. As the comparison of Cesare Borgia and Agathocles shows, Machiavelli does not approve of unlimited cruelty exercised for purely selfish motives and without beneficial effect for the state. Nor is the book an uncritical ‘how to’ manual. In Machiavelli’s discussions cruelty always has a point, a moral point: it is to prevent even more cruel actions being taken later on; it is for the common good. The Prince, then, is far from an amoral book. It may advocate policies which are immoral by conventional standards, but these policies are themselves given moral and political justifications. It is, then, far more than a manual providing techniques by which the unscrupulous can become powerful.
《君主论》的另一种解读是，马基雅维利是在给那些想要保持权力而丝毫不在乎道德的人提供指导。在这种解读中，马基雅维利是非道德的，完全超脱于道德，只是给那些准备像精神病患者一样行事的人提供建议。这种解读是不可信的。正如切萨雷·博尔贾和阿卡托克利斯的比较所示，马基雅维利并不赞成出于纯粹自私动机而施加的无限残酷，而这种残酷对国家没有任何有益的影响。该书也不是一本不加批判的“如何做”手册。在马基雅维利的讨论中，残酷总是有其目的，有道德目的：是为了防止更残酷的行为在后期发生；是为了公共利益。因此，《君主论》远非一本非道德的书。它可能倡导在传统标准下被视为不道德的政策，但这些政策本身是有道德和政治正当性的。因此，它远不止是一本提供技巧的手册，让不择手段的人获得权力。
Machiavelli’s originality
马基雅维利的独创性
The historian of ideas, Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) gives a far more subtle picture of Machiavelli’s contribution to political thought. On his interpretation, Machiavelli’s great originality and appeal lies in the fact that he recognised the shortcomings of classical and Christian morality when applied to the situation of a prince. A prince who displays the traditional virtues, such as honesty and compassion, is likely to play into the hands of his enemies, who are unlikely to be so scrupulous. Berlin’s point is that, far from being amoral, Machiavelli, perhaps unwittingly, introduced the notion that there could be more than one morality and that these moralities might not be compatible with one another. It’s not that one morality is the true one and all others false. Rather there are genuinely incompatible moralities that are each consistent from within.
思想史学家以赛亚·柏林（1909–1997）对马基雅维利对政治思想贡献的看法更加微妙。在他的解读中，马基雅维利的伟大原创性和吸引力在于他认识到古典和基督教道德在应用于王子的情况下的局限性。一个展现传统美德的王子，如诚实和同情，可能会落入敌人的圈套，而敌人往往不会如此谨慎。柏林的观点是，马基雅维利并非缺乏道德，或许是无意中引入了这样一个概念：可能存在不止一种道德，而这些道德可能彼此不兼容。并不是说一种道德是真实的，其他的都是虚假的。相反，确实存在彼此不兼容的道德，而每种道德在其内部都是一致的。
Berlin defends a position known as value pluralism, the idea that there can be many incompatible moral systems and no principles for deciding between the systems (though some systems can be recognisably superior to others). He sees a precursor of his own views in Machiavelli’s writings.
柏林捍卫一种被称为价值多元主义的立场，即可以存在许多不兼容的道德体系，并且没有原则可以用来在这些体系之间做出决定（尽管某些体系可以明显优于其他体系）。他在马基雅维利的著作中看到了自己观点的前身。
Dirty hands in politics
政治中的肮脏手段
One way in which Machiavelli’s ideas still inform present-day debate is in the area of ‘dirty hands’ in politics, the idea that some sorts of apparently immoral behaviour are an inevitable consequence of the role of being a political leader. Machiavelli’s account in The Prince seems to imply that any effective ruler will, necessarily, have to learn to be cruel, and, on occasion, to go directly against the dictates of conventional morality. This is not to say that behaviour such as telling lies or half-truths, breaking promises and so on, are for him genuinely immoral when done by political leaders with the interests of their people at heart. On Machiavelli’s account princes must follow a different, and (for them) a more appropriate moral code from the rest of humanity.
马基雅维利的思想在当今辩论中仍然影响着一个方面，即政治中的“肮脏的手”问题，即某些看似不道德的行为是作为政治领导者角色的不可避免的结果。马基雅维利在《君主论》中的论述似乎暗示，任何有效的统治者必然需要学会残忍，并且在某些情况下，直接违背传统道德的规范。这并不是说，像撒谎或半真半假的说法、违背承诺等行为，在他看来，当政治领导者出于人民利益而做时，就是真正的不道德。根据马基雅维利的说法，王子们必须遵循与人类其他部分不同的、更适合他们的道德准则。
Criticisms of the Prince
对《王子》的批评
Advocates immorality
提倡不道德行为
Machiavelli shows no respect for what we would now call human rights. For him, individuals can be sacrificed (literally if appropriate) in the interests of the state. State torture and murder are sometimes necessary; indeed he suggests that a ruler who is reluctant to use such methods swiftly and effectively when the occasion arises is in some sense a bad prince, since his squeamishness will very likely lead to more extensive bloodshed later.
马基雅维利对我们现在所称的人权毫无尊重。对他而言，个人可以为了国家的利益而被牺牲（如果合适的话，甚至是字面上的牺牲）。国家的酷刑和谋杀有时是必要的；事实上，他暗示一个在适当时机不愿迅速有效地使用这些手段的统治者在某种意义上是一个坏王子，因为他的胆怯很可能会导致后来的更大流血。
Recent history has shown the dangers of unleashing tyrants on unsuspecting populations. The consequences of giving such tyrants an apparent intellectual justification for their behaviour are likely to include intense suffering for at least some of their subjects. Given the human capacity for self-deception, it is easy to imagine such leaders telling themselves that what they are doing is really necessary if their country is to thrive. In fact this may be a self-serving rationalisation of appalling violence and far too high a price to pay for political stability. Machiavelli’s response to such a criticism would be that the effectiveness of such violence is always to be judged by its results: did the state become richer, more stable, more powerful, or didn’t it? For him there are no other relevant considerations.
最近的历史表明，释放暴君对毫无防备的民众的危险。给予这些暴君明显的智力辩解的后果，可能会导致他们的一些臣民遭受极大的痛苦。考虑到人类自我欺骗的能力，很容易想象这些领导者告诉自己，如果他们的国家要繁荣，他们所做的事情实际上是必要的。事实上，这可能是对可怕暴力的自私合理化，而为政治稳定付出如此高的代价实在是太过于沉重。马基雅维利对这种批评的回应是，这种暴力的有效性总是要通过其结果来判断：国家是否变得更富裕、更稳定、更强大，或者没有？对他来说，没有其他相关的考虑。
Too cynical
太愤世嫉俗了
Machiavelli has a very low view of human motives. Perhaps he is wrong about this. Many people are far more optimistic about the potential of human beings to care about one another’s plight than he is. If he is wrong about human fickleness, then rule by fear and clinically effective cruelty may not be necessary. If he is right, however, political leaders who unswervingly display the conventional virtues may be placing their people in jeopardy.
马基雅维利对人类动机的看法非常低。也许他在这方面是错的。许多人对人类关心彼此困境的潜力比他更乐观。如果他对人类的善变看法是错误的，那么通过恐惧和临床有效的残酷统治可能就不是必要的。然而，如果他是对的，那么那些坚定展现传统美德的政治领导者可能会将他们的人民置于危险之中。
1469 | born in Florence, Italy. |
1513 | tortured and sent into exile. Begins writing The Prince. |
1527 | dies, Florence. |
1532 | The Prince is published posthumously. |
amoral: completely outside the moral realm.
非道德的：完全超出道德领域。
fortune: chance or luck. Machiavelli believed that half of all human matters were governed by chance.
运气：机会或运气。马基雅维利认为，所有人类事务的一半是由偶然决定的。
immoral: going against an established moral system. Immorality is always measured against moral ideals or principles.
不道德：违反既定的道德体系。不道德行为总是以道德理想或原则为标准进行衡量。
virtù: the key concept for Machiavelli, usually translated as ‘prowess’. Not to be confused with ‘virtue’ as it is conventionally understood. For Machiavelli a display of virtù might involve deception or a swift and effective use of bloodshed.
virtù：马基雅维利的关键概念，通常翻译为“才能”。不应与传统意义上的“美德”混淆。对于马基雅维利来说，展现 virtù可能涉及欺骗或迅速有效地使用流血。
Quentin Skinner A Very Short Introduction to Machiavelli (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) is essential reading for anyone interested in finding out more about Machiavelli’s life and thought.
昆廷·斯金纳 《马基雅维利简明导论》（牛津：牛津大学出版社，2000 年）是任何对马基雅维利的生活和思想感兴趣的人必读的书籍。
Isaiah Berlin’s classic essay ‘the Originality of Machiavelli’ is reprinted in Isaiah Berlin, ed. Henry Hardy The Proper Study of Mankind (London: Pimlico, 1998).
以赛亚·伯林的经典论文《马基雅维利的独创性》收录在以赛亚·伯林主编的亨利·哈迪《人类的适当研究》中（伦敦：皮姆利科，1998 年）。
Nigel Warburton, Derek Matravers and Jon Pike (eds) Reading Political Philosophy: Machiavelli to Mill (London: Routledge, 2001) includes a discussion of The Prince, and readings on Machiavelli by Skinner, Berlin and others.
奈杰尔·沃伯顿、德里克·马特拉弗斯和乔恩·派克（编）《政治哲学阅读：从马基雅维利到密尔》（伦敦：劳特利奇，2001 年）包括对《君主论》的讨论，以及斯金纳、柏林等人对马基雅维利的阅读。
Sebastian de Grazia Machiavelli in Hell (London: Macmillan, 1996) is a prize-winning biography of Machiavelli. Maurizio Viroli’s more recent biography Niccolò’s Smile (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000) provides a character portrait that relates Machiavelli’s rich life to his thought.
塞巴斯蒂安·德·格拉齐亚的《地狱中的马基雅维利》（伦敦：麦克米伦，1996）是一本获奖的马基雅维利传记。毛里齐奥·维罗利最近的传记《尼科洛的微笑》（纽约：法拉尔、斯特劳斯和吉鲁，2000）提供了一个人物肖像，将马基雅维利丰富的生活与他的思想联系起来。
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne Essays
米歇尔·艾克姆·德·蒙田 论文
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne invented the essay. Or, rather, he invented the ‘essai’ – the word in French means something a little different from what it means in English. In French it suggests trying something out, an attempt, a trial; whereas in English an ‘essay’, for most students at least, is a piece of writing with a clearly stated conclusion and arguments and evidence given in support of that conclusion. Usually such essays are for assessment purposes, a test of what you know and how well you can organise that material. For Montaigne, in contrast, the essay was an experimental form, and not necessarily conclusive. He wrote to explore ideas, combining references to classical authors with descriptions of quirky aspects of his day-to-day life. Unlike most student essay-writers he was happy to reveal how little he knew, as well as to describe with disconcerting honesty features of his life, including his sexual life, that few of his day would openly share. 107 of these essays survive on topics as diverse as death, skepticism and cannibalism. Some argue to a conclusion, others meander and digress.
米歇尔·艾凯姆·德·蒙田发明了散文。或者说，他发明了“essai”——这个法语单词的含义与英语中的含义略有不同。在法语中，它暗示着尝试某事，一种尝试，一次试验；而在英语中，“essay”对于大多数学生来说，至少是一个有明确结论的写作作品，并提供支持该结论的论据和证据。通常，这种散文是为了评估目的，是对你所知道的内容以及你如何组织这些材料的测试。相比之下，对于蒙田来说，散文是一种实验形式，并不一定是结论性的。他写作是为了探索思想，将对古典作者的引用与对他日常生活中古怪方面的描述结合在一起。与大多数学生散文作者不同，他乐于揭示自己知道的少，以及以令人不安的诚实描述他生活中的特征，包括他的性生活，这些在他那个时代很少有人会公开分享。这 107 篇散文涵盖了死亡、怀疑主义和食人等多种主题。有些散文得出结论，其他则漫无目的地游走和离题。
In contrast to the later philosopher Immanuel Kant, who in his famous Critique of Pure Reason (see Chapter 14) arranged his ideas in a highly systematic way, according to what he called his ‘architectonic’, Montaigne was open about the lack of plan, the eccentricity of his book’s arrangement: such tidiness did not reflect how life is lived, nor the style of Montaigne’s thought. If you want to understand and celebrate the messiness of life, the accumulation of details and apparently unconnected events, then Montaigne is likely to appeal to you. Where Kant presents himself as one who knows the answers and proceeds to tell you what they are more or less impersonally, Montaigne’s essays open a window on a remarkable man searching for answers, playing with questions and revealing the seemingly trivial aspects of his existence, not always reaching a conclusion, and not being unduly concerned by that.
与后来的哲学家伊曼努尔·康德形成对比，康德在他著名的《纯粹理性批判》（见第 14 章）中以高度系统化的方式安排他的思想，按照他所称的“建筑论”，蒙田则坦率地承认他的书的安排缺乏计划和古怪：这种整洁并不反映生活的真实状态，也不符合蒙田的思维风格。如果你想理解并庆祝生活的混乱、细节的积累和看似无关的事件，那么蒙田可能会吸引你。在康德呈现自己为一个知道答案的人，并以或多或少不带个人色彩的方式告诉你答案时，蒙田的散文则为你打开了一扇窗，展现了一个杰出的人在寻找答案、玩弄问题并揭示他存在中看似琐碎的方面，往往没有得出结论，也不对此过于担忧。
Montaigne’s essays include asides, many quotations (usually in Latin), references, and sometimes seem to imply completely contradictory views, even within a single essay. They often focus on something quite different from the stated topic – a digression can evolve into the main topic. Nevertheless they have inspired many generations of readers most of whom have felt that through his writing Montaigne was almost present in their lives, even when reading his essays centuries after his death. His open and perceptive self-revelations, no matter how specific, point at profound truths about the human condition that echo with the present. His essays were autobiographical in a time when autobiography was not a recognised and popular form: this was not how you were supposed to write philosophy. Montaigne thought that in a sense his essays were him – they revealed who he was, and were the place where he discovered that in the process of writing. The act of writing, the self-observation that it involved, made him live differently, and, he thought, better. He became more attentive to what was happening around him, more reflective.
蒙田的随笔包含插话、许多引用（通常是拉丁文）、参考资料，有时似乎在同一篇文章中暗示完全矛盾的观点。它们常常关注与所述主题截然不同的内容——一个离题的讨论可能演变为主要话题。尽管如此，它们激励了许多代读者，大多数人感到通过他的写作，蒙田几乎在他们的生活中存在，即使是在他去世几个世纪后阅读他的随笔。他开放而敏锐的自我揭示，无论多么具体，都指向关于人类状况的深刻真理，与当下产生共鸣。他的随笔是自传性的，而在那个自传尚未被认可和流行的时代：这并不是写哲学的方式。蒙田认为在某种意义上，他的随笔就是他自己——它们揭示了他是谁，并且是他在写作过程中发现自我的地方。写作的行为，以及它所涉及的自我观察，使他以不同的方式生活，他认为，这种生活更好。他变得更加关注周围发生的事情，更加反思。
When he discusses philosophy directly Montaigne is not particularly original, drawing as he does on ancient stoicism and scepticism, mostly quoting from authors who wrote in the Roman period such as Plutarch and Seneca, thinkers who themselves owed a great deal to Greek philosophers who had written centuries before them. Montaigne’s originality lies in his distinctive style, his percept ive remarks, his use of autobiography, and particularly his openness about aspects of life most keep private, such as his preferences in sex, and his mention of the fact that kings, philosophers and ladies all defecate. Ultimately his writing is driven by a desire to throw himself into the question of what it means to be human. Like Socrates he takes seriously the ancient injunction ‘know thyself’ and thinks hard about how to live and how to prepare for death.
当他直接讨论哲学时，蒙田并不是特别原创，他借鉴了古代的斯多噶主义和怀疑主义，主要引用了罗马时期的作者，如普鲁塔克和塞内卡，这些思想家本身也在很大程度上受益于几个世纪前的希腊哲学家。蒙田的原创性在于他独特的风格、敏锐的观察、对自传的运用，特别是他对大多数人保持私密的生活方面的开放态度，比如他在性方面的偏好，以及他提到国王、哲学家和女士们都要排便的事实。最终，他的写作是出于一种渴望，想要深入探讨什么是人类。像苏格拉底一样，他认真对待古代的箴言“认识你自己”，并深入思考如何生活以及如何准备面对死亡。
Montaigne was a sixteenth-century French nobleman who lived in South Western France near Bordeaux. He was from a wealthy family who owned large vineyards and he lived in a huge chateau. When he retired from public life, he would spend most of his time in a tower of this chateau writing and thinking. Indeed he used his writing as a way to focus his thinking.
蒙田是十六世纪的法国贵族，生活在西南法国的波尔多附近。他来自一个拥有大片葡萄园的富裕家庭，住在一座巨大的城堡里。当他退休后，他会在这座城堡的一个塔楼里花费大部分时间进行写作和思考。实际上，他将写作作为集中思考的一种方式。
Influenced by Phyrro, Montaigne embraced scepticism, believing that the only certainty is that nothing is certain – even reason itself may be unreliable. A favourite phrase of his was ‘What do I know?’ suggesting the answer ‘next to nothing, or possibly nothing at all’. Human beings know little or nothing. In an act of imagination he took on the perspective of his cat: ‘How do I know when I’m playing with my cat that my cat isn’t playing with me?’ he asked. He tried to understand what it would be like to be his dog, with its heightened sense of smell, too, thinking through the different perspectives these animals had on the ‘reality’ that Montaigne experienced. Montaigne’s own viewpoint was, then, one of uncertainty, and, unlike René Descartes (see Chapter 6) who although he engaged with the arguments for scepticism, was driven to find something certain, Montaigne embraced the lack of certainty that he believed to be characteristic of the human condition.
受到皮罗的影响，蒙田接受了怀疑主义，认为唯一的确定性就是没有什么是确定的——甚至理性本身也可能不可靠。他最喜欢的一句话是“我知道什么？”这暗示着答案是“几乎什么都不知道，或者可能根本一无所知”。人类知道的很少或根本不知道。在一次想象的行为中，他以猫的视角来看待问题：“我怎么知道在和我的猫玩的时候，我的猫不是在和我玩？”他问道。他试图理解作为他的狗是什么样的，狗有着更强的嗅觉，思考这些动物对蒙田所经历的“现实”的不同看法。因此，蒙田的观点是充满不确定性的，与勒内·笛卡尔（见第六章）不同，笛卡尔虽然参与了对怀疑主义的辩论，但他被驱使去寻找某种确定的东西，而蒙田则接受了他认为是人类状况特征的不确定性。
His desire to conquer himself, given that the world was resistant to human control, reflects what he took from stoicism: the philosophical position that emphasises that we are able to decide what we make of the misfortunes that happen to us, and that a true philosopher will be able to maintain a calm mind whatever the circumstances by detaching mentally from the pain and disturbance that most of us feel when things go wrong. The severest test for a Stoic is the question of how to approach death and the pain that often accompanies the process of dying. This was a subject that vexed Montaigne, and is a recurrent theme in his essays.
他渴望征服自己，因为世界对人类的控制充满抵抗，这反映了他从斯多葛主义中获得的东西：这一哲学立场强调我们能够决定如何看待发生在我们身上的不幸，真正的哲学家能够在任何情况下保持冷静的心态，通过在心理上与大多数人在事情出错时所感受到的痛苦和干扰保持距离。斯多葛主义者面临的最严峻考验是如何面对死亡以及通常伴随死亡过程的痛苦。这是蒙田所困扰的一个主题，也是他散文中的一个反复出现的主题。
Four out of five of Montaigne’s children died in childhood, his best friend died of plague, and his younger brother died from an accident when a tennis ball struck his head behind his ear – he died several hours later. Montaigne himself suffered a very severe fall from a horse after a collision with a servant on horseback at full gallop – the impact almost killed him. The theme of death occurs in a number of his essays, picking up from the ancient philosophers’ belief that to philosophise involves learning how to cope with death, or at least to distract the individual enough not to be worried any more about the inevitable end to come. It is central in the essay ‘that to study philosophy is to learn to die.’
蒙田的五个孩子中有四个在童年时期去世，他最好的朋友死于瘟疫，他的弟弟在一次意外中被网球击中耳后而死——他在几小时后去世。蒙田本人在与一名骑马仆人全速相撞后，从马背上摔下，遭受了非常严重的伤害——撞击几乎要了他的命。死亡的主题出现在他的多篇散文中，延续了古代哲学家们的信念，即哲学的学习涉及如何应对死亡，或者至少让个体分心，不再担心即将到来的不可避免的结局。在散文《学习哲学就是学习死亡》中，这一主题尤为核心。
Although Montaigne acknowledged fear of death, and suffered from it himself, his own experience led him to worry less about this. Death, he felt, is a natural phenomenon, and when the time comes, nature will take over. Rather than hide the fact of death from ourselves, we should think about it often, we should reflect on the brevity of life and the difficulty of knowing when our own death will arrive, and the uncertainty about the form it will take. Montaigne cites approvingly the Ancient Egyptian habit of bringing in a dried skeleton at the height of a feast as a memento mori. Not openly atheist, Montaigne nevertheless wrote as if death was final. Echoing Seneca, he declares that what matters is not how long you live, but what you do with your time on Earth. He suggested that one of the best ways of dealing with fear of our own death was to think about death every day. The process of reflecting on the possibility of our own death at any moment would, he believed, prepare us well for living and enjoying the time that we are lucky enough to have alive. He also described his own experience of near-death, and reflected that his fear of death itself was substantially less when it seemed imminent than when it seemed unlikely.
尽管蒙田承认对死亡的恐惧，并且自己也曾遭受这种恐惧，但他的个人经历使他对这一点担忧较少。他认为，死亡是一种自然现象，当时机来临时，自然会接管。与其对死亡的事实视而不见，我们应该经常思考它，反思生命的短暂以及我们何时会迎来自己死亡的难以知晓，以及它将以何种形式出现的不确定性。蒙田赞同古埃及人在盛宴高潮时带入一个干燥的骷髅作为死亡的警示。虽然他并不公开宣称无神论，但蒙田的写作方式仿佛死亡是终结。呼应塞内卡，他宣称重要的不是你活了多久，而是你在地球上如何利用你的时间。他建议应对自己死亡恐惧的最佳方法之一是每天思考死亡。他相信，反思我们随时可能面临自己死亡的可能性，将使我们更好地准备去生活和享受我们有幸活着的时光。 他还描述了自己濒死的经历，并反思道，当死亡似乎迫在眉睫时，他对死亡本身的恐惧明显减少，而当死亡似乎不太可能时，这种恐惧则更强。
Montaigne’s essays cover such a wide range of topics including cowardice, fear, cannibalism, prayer, solitude, drunkenness, cruelty and the resemblance of children to their fathers, that they defy simple summary. The common thread through them all is Montaigne’s presence, his willingness to explore the topic in question with honesty, drawing on quotations from ancient writers and his own experience.
蒙田的随笔涵盖了广泛的主题，包括懦弱、恐惧、食人、祈祷、孤独、酗酒、残忍以及孩子与父亲的相似性，因此难以简单总结。贯穿其中的共同线索是蒙田的存在，他愿意以诚实的态度探讨所讨论的主题，引用古代作家的名言和他自己的经验。
Criticism of Montaigne’s Essays
对蒙田《随笔》的批评
Too subjective
过于主观
Montaigne doesn’t always feature on philosophy syllabuses: his essays are more likely to be on the reading lists of those studying French literature. One reason for this is that, in comparison with, say David Hume, or Bertrand Russell, his writing is always intensely subjective: he begins from his own position and the minutiae of his actual existence. As he put it, when considering the fact that he changed his views, sometimes within an essay, ‘I may contradict myself, but the truth I never contradict.’ This emphasis on truth to the experience of the particularities of his own life, together with his quirky focus on the apparently trivial detail, can lead some to dismiss his essays as interesting and entertaining to read, but not really philosophical in any important sense. This sort of criticism misses the point and stems from a narrow viewpoint that treats philosophy as a quasiscientific discipline that is always aiming at generality and objectivity.
蒙田并不总是出现在哲学课程大纲中：他的散文更可能出现在学习法国语言文学的人的阅读清单上。原因之一是，与大卫·休谟或伯特兰·罗素相比，他的写作总是高度主观的：他从自己的立场和实际生活的细节出发。正如他所说，当考虑到他有时在一篇散文中改变观点的事实时，“我可能会自相矛盾，但我从不否认真理。”这种对自己生活特定经验的真实感的强调，加上他对看似琐碎细节的独特关注，可能导致一些人将他的散文视为有趣和娱乐的阅读，但在任何重要意义上并不真正属于哲学。这种批评忽视了要点，源于一种狭隘的观点，将哲学视为一种准科学学科，始终追求普遍性和客观性。
Lack philosophical originality
缺乏哲学原创性
Another criticism of Montaigne is that there is very little in his writing that has not been said before by other philosophers. Montaigne drew heavily from the work of Stoics and the Sceptics and his writings are interspersed with Latin quotations. Many of his ideas, such as his views on scepticism and on death were derived directly from ancient philosophy. Because of this his work may seem to lack philosophical originality. However, his peculiar style of thinking, his willingness to illustrate his thought with examples from his own life and experience, and his frank and open writing style are all highly distinctive and original. His real originality lies in the way he took his own individual existence and experience as the subject of his investigations and derived a general picture of human life and what matters from that: as he makes clear in the book’s note ‘to the Reader’, his main subject is Montaigne himself.
对蒙田的另一个批评是，他的著作中几乎没有什么是其他哲学家没有说过的。蒙田大量借鉴了斯多亚学派和怀疑主义者的作品，他的著作中夹杂着拉丁语引用。他的许多观点，例如对怀疑主义和死亡的看法，直接源自古代哲学。因此，他的作品可能显得缺乏哲学原创性。然而，他独特的思维风格、愿意用自己生活和经验中的例子来阐明思想的态度，以及坦率开放的写作风格都是非常独特和原创的。他真正的原创性在于他将自己个体的存在和经验作为研究的主题，并从中得出人类生活和重要事物的总体图景：正如他在书的“致读者”一节中明确指出的，他的主要主题就是蒙田本人。
1533 | born in Aquitaine region, France. |
1571 | retires from public life to think and write. |
1580 | first volume of his Essays published. |
1592 | dies. |
essay: a translation of the French word ‘essai’ which has connotations of ‘an attempt’. For Montaigne the essay was an exploratory literary form, a way of finding out what he thought.
论文：法语单词“essai”的翻译，具有“尝试”的含义。对于蒙田来说，论文是一种探索性的文学形式，是一种了解自己想法的方式。
scepticism: the philosophical stance of doubting, such as doubting the reliability of sensory evidence. Phyrronic sceptics doubted even the reliability of reason.
怀疑主义：一种怀疑的哲学立场，例如怀疑感官证据的可靠性。皮浪派怀疑者甚至怀疑理性的可靠性。
Sarah Bakewell How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (London: Vintage, 2011) is a superb introduction to Montaigne and his essays written in the spirit of its subject. The author’s website www.sarahbakewell.com provides links to several further resources on Montaigne.
莎拉·贝克威尔《如何生活：蒙田的一生与一个问题和二十次尝试的答案》（伦敦：Vintage，2011）是对蒙田及其散文的极佳介绍，书写风格与其主题相得益彰。作者的网站 www.sarahbakewell.com 提供了关于蒙田的多个进一步资源的链接。
Saul Frampton When I Am Playing with My Cat, How Do I Know She is Not Playing With Me?: Montaigne and Being in Touch With Life (London: Faber, 2012) is another interesting and wide-ranging book about this unusual thinker.
索尔·弗兰普顿《当我和我的猫玩耍时，我怎么知道她不是在和我玩？：蒙田与与生活保持联系》（伦敦：法伯，2012）是一本关于这个不寻常思想家的有趣且广泛的书。
Terence Cave How to Read Montaigne (London: Granta Books, 2007) is also useful as a preliminary guide to Montaigne’s major themes.
特伦斯·凯夫《如何阅读蒙田》（伦敦：格兰塔书籍，2007 年）也是了解蒙田主要主题的有用初步指南。
René Descartes Meditations
勒内·笛卡尔《沉思》
Descartes’s Meditations is a book designed to make you think. It is written in the first person in what seems to be an autobiography of six days’ thought. However, this is in fact a highly ingenious device for encouraging the reader to follow the twists of the argument. To read the book in the spirit in which it was written involves active engagement with its ideas, not just passive absorption. You are invited to become the ‘I’ in the text, moving through successive phases of doubt and enlightenment. As philosophical literature the Meditations remains unsurpassed and many of the ideas expressed in it have held sway over subsequent philosophers. Descartes is usually taken to be the father of modern philosophy.
笛卡尔的《沉思》是一本旨在让你思考的书。它以第一人称写成，似乎是六天思考的自传。然而，这实际上是一种极其巧妙的手法，鼓励读者跟随论证的曲折。以书中所写的精神来阅读这本书需要积极参与其思想，而不仅仅是被动吸收。你被邀请成为文本中的“我”，经历怀疑和启蒙的连续阶段。作为哲学文学，《沉思》仍然无与伦比，其中表达的许多思想对后来的哲学家产生了深远的影响。笛卡尔通常被认为是现代哲学的父亲。
In the Meditations Descartes sets out to establish what it is possible to know. Consequently, his principal concern in the book is with epistemology, the theory of knowledge. Establishing the limits of knowledge was not a merely academic exercise: he believed that if he could eliminate errors in his thinking and discover sound principles for acquiring true beliefs then this would provide a bedrock on which the edifice of scientific understanding of the world and our place within it could be built. The dominant view in France in 1640 when Descartes wrote his Meditations was that of the Catholic Church, which was in many ways hostile to science. Descartes was also struggling against a tradition of scholasticism in philosophy which tended to promote debating skills above the quest for truth. Returning to first principles and jettisoning received opinion was a radical move for Descartes to make in these circumstances.
在《沉思》中，笛卡尔旨在确立什么是可以知道的。因此，他在书中的主要关注点是认识论，即知识的理论。确立知识的界限并不是一个单纯的学术练习：他相信，如果他能够消除思维中的错误并发现获取真信念的可靠原则，那么这将为建立科学理解世界及我们在其中位置的基础提供支撑。1640 年，当笛卡尔写下《沉思》时，法国的主流观点是天主教会的立场，这在许多方面对科学持敌对态度。笛卡尔还在与一种哲学上的经院主义传统作斗争，该传统往往更重视辩论技巧而非追求真理。在这种情况下，回归第一原则并抛弃既有观点对笛卡尔来说是一个激进的举动。
Before he could begin the constructive stage of his work, Descartes believed that he needed, once in his lifetime, to rid himself of all his former beliefs since he was aware that many of them were false. He thought it sensible to rid himself of all his former beliefs in one go and then consider one by one prospective replacements for them rather than to attempt a piecemeal repair of his belief structure. In a reply to a critic of his work he explained this approach by means of an analogy: if you are worried about rotten apples in a barrel you will be well advised to tip out all the apples and examine each one before you replace it in the barrel. Only if you are certain that the apple you are considering is sound should you put it back in the barrel, since a single rotten apple could contaminate all the others. This analogy explains his method of radical doubt, often known as the Method of Cartesian Doubt (‘Cartesian’ being the adjective from ‘Descartes’).
在他开始工作的建设性阶段之前，笛卡尔认为他一生中需要一次性摆脱所有以前的信念，因为他意识到其中许多都是错误的。他认为一次性摆弃所有以前的信念是明智的，然后逐一考虑替代方案，而不是试图对他的信念结构进行零星修补。在对一位批评他工作的评论者的回复中，他通过一个类比解释了这种方法：如果你担心桶里的烂苹果，最好把所有苹果倒出来，逐一检查，然后再放回桶里。只有当你确信你考虑的苹果是好的时，才应该把它放回桶里，因为一个烂苹果可能会污染其他所有苹果。这个类比解释了他的激进怀疑方法，通常被称为笛卡尔怀疑法（“笛卡尔”是“笛卡尔”的形容词）。
The Method of Doubt involves treating all your former beliefs as if they were false. You should only believe something if you are absolutely certain that it is true: